The Known Good Updated 4 Sep 2026 Subscribe
Google: Gemma 3 27B vs MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 ·Google vs Moonshot AI

Google: Gemma 3 27B vs MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 — head-to-head comparison

Google: Gemma 3 27B profile MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 profile All comparisons
Google: Gemma 3 27B — Google
Quality
#49 of 65
47based on 4 of 7 evaluations
Known Good Index
Speed
#311 of 338
19.0
Output tokens per second
Price
#73 of 442
$0.17
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.08 · Out $0.45
Cache hit price
#104 of 324
$0.040
per 1M tokens (−50%)
Context
#373 of 476
131k
tokens (~200 pages)
MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 — Moonshot AI
Quality
#8 of 65
92based on 3 of 7 evaluations
Known Good Index
Speed
#154 of 338
52.1
Output tokens per second
Price
#290 of 442
$1.71
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.95 · Out $4.00
Cache hit price
#211 of 324
$0.16
per 1M tokens (−83%)
Context
#264 of 476
262k
tokens (~400 pages)
Summary

On the Known Good Index, Google: Gemma 3 27B scores 47 and MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 scores 92 — a 45-point lead for MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6. They share 2 published evaluations, with Google: Gemma 3 27B ahead on 0 and MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 ahead on 2.

Blended pricing is $0.17 per 1M tokens for Google: Gemma 3 27B and $1.71 for MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 — Google: Gemma 3 27B is about 9.9× cheaper.

Throughput is 19 tokens per second for Google: Gemma 3 27B and 52 for MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6, with time to first token at 1.0s and 1.8s. Google: Gemma 3 27B accepts 131k tokens of context against 262k.

Google: Gemma 3 27B is open weights under Open weights (restricted use); MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 is open weights under Open weights (unrestricted). 24 tracked hosts serve one or both, and 4 serve both.

Generated from tracked data on 4 Sep 2026 · how these comparisons are computed →

At a glance
MetricGoogle: Gemma 3 27BMoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Known Good Index 47 based on 4 of 7 evaluations 92 based on 3 of 7 evaluations
Blended $/1M $0.17 $1.71
Output tok/s 19 52
Context window 131k 262k
Providers 5 23
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Quality

Known Good Index and the capability indices, side by side

Index scores

Each index is min-max normalised across tracked models and scaled 0–100 from published evaluations. We do not run these evaluations.

MetricGoogle: Gemma 3 27BMoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Known Good Index 47 92
Mathematics Index 49
Reasoning Index 40
Openness Index 60 60
The Known Good

Quality Breakdown

Every evaluation both models report a published score for

Evaluations both models report

Bar = Google: Gemma 3 27B · marker = MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 · scores ingested from Epoch AI (CC-BY 4.0)

GPQA Diamond48 / 91
Mock AIME 2024–2522 / 96

Right-hand figures read Google: Gemma 3 27B / MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6. Google: Gemma 3 27B leads on 0 of 2, MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 on 2.

The Known Good

Arena Elo

Human preference rating from blind pairwise votes

Arena ratings

Elo from blind pairwise votes, ingested from Arena. Higher is better.

MetricGoogle: Gemma 3 27BMoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Text Arena 1,358 1,455
Text Arena (style controlled) 1,365 1,461
The Known Good

Price & Cost

Published API pricing by token type

Published pricing

USD per 1M tokens. Blended is a 3:1 input:output mix. Live from OpenRouter, cross-checked against models.dev. Lower is better.

MetricGoogle: Gemma 3 27BMoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Input $/1M $0.08 $0.95
Output $/1M $0.45 $4.00
Blended $/1M $0.17 $1.71
Cache read $/1M $0.040 $0.160
The Known Good
We publish blended price rather than cost-per-task. Cost-per-task requires token counts from an evaluation suite we do not run. Blended price is computed from published rates and is fully reproducible — see the pricing methodology.

Context Window

Maximum input accepted and maximum output emitted

Context and output limits

Provider-declared limits, from metadata via models.dev and OpenRouter. Higher is better.

MetricGoogle: Gemma 3 27BMoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Context window 131k 262k
Max output tokens 118k 236k
The Known Good

Speed & Latency

Mean throughput and time to first token across hosting providers, over successful measurements from the last 48 hours

Throughput and latency

Means across all tracked providers over successful measurements from the last 48 hours, derived from OpenRouter endpoint telemetry.

MetricGoogle: Gemma 3 27BMoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Output tokens/s 19 52
Time to first token 1.0s 1.8s
The Known Good

Providers

Which hosts serve each model, and at what price and speed

24 hosts · 4 serve both
Full provider benchmarks →
Provider Google: Gemma 3 27B blendedGoogle: Gemma 3 27B tok/s MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 blendedMoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 tok/s
Phala $0.23 51 $1.97 57
DeepInfra $0.10 16 $1.44 7
Parasail $0.17 11 $1.44 78
Nebius $0.15 7
Novita $0.14 7 $1.45 28
CoreWeave $1.34 140
Together $2.02 119
ModelRun $1.38 103
Decart $1.00 65
DigitalOcean $1.71 41
Cloudflare $1.71 39
Fireworks $1.71 38
Inceptron $1.24 38
Sail Research $1.75 33
StreamLake $1.08 33
Baidu · first party $1.71 26
Moonshot AI · first party $1.71 26
Chutes $1.28 23
SiliconFlow $1.43 23
AtlasCloud $1.71 22
GMICloud $1.54 10
Crusoe $1.40 9
Venice $1.44 8
BaseTen $1.71

Per-host pricing and telemetry from OpenRouter. A dash means that host does not serve that model.

The Known Good
Sources for this page
Pricing & providers — OpenRouter Metadata — models.dev Benchmarks — Epoch AI (CC-BY 4.0)Elo — Arena Full attribution →