AI Model Release Tracker - Timeline of Major AI Models from 2022-2026

Home/Compare/Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Kimi-VL

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Kimi-VL

2 vs 0 benchmarks won

Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Moonshot AI
Kimi-VL
Overview
CompanyAnthropicMoonshot AI
Release dateFeb 17 2026Apr 2025
Model type
Open sourceNoYes
Specifications
Parameters
16B
Context window
Benchmarks
Science reasoning
GPQA Diamond
89.9%
Software engineering
SWE-Bench Verified
79.6%
Multimodal understanding
MMMU
Timeline
Release gapKimi-VL shipped 322 days before Claude Sonnet 4.6

Which is better: Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Kimi-VL?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads Kimi-VL on 2 of the tracked benchmarks (GPQA Diamond, SWE-Bench Verified, MMMU). Kimi-VL shipped 322 days before Claude Sonnet 4.6, so benchmark comparisons should account for the intervening progress.

Kimi-VL is an open-source / open-weight model; Claude Sonnet 4.6 is proprietary.

Direct benchmark comparisons are unavailable — at least one of these models has not published scores on GPQA Diamond, SWE-Bench Verified, or MMMU.

Frequently asked questions

When was Claude Sonnet 4.6 released?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 was released by Anthropic on Feb 17 2026.
When was Kimi-VL released?
Kimi-VL was released by Moonshot AI on Apr 2025.
Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Kimi-VL open source?
Kimi-VL is an open-source / open-weight model released by Moonshot AI. Claude Sonnet 4.6 is a proprietary model released by Anthropic.

Other comparisons