Kimi K3 vs sonar

One key routes both. Starter credit covers your first Kimi K3 requests, while sonar runs on your own provider key. Switch by changing the model name.

Side by side:

MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 compared with sonar
Attribute	Kimi K3 `moonshotai/kimi-k3`	sonar `perplexity/sonar`
Price, 1M in + out	$11.97 Chutes, cheapest route	$2.90 Your provider key
Cached input	$0.1688/1M to $0.910887/1M	Not published
Context window	1.05M 1,048,576 tokens	Unlisted
First token, p50	0.82 s via Telnyx	Measuring
Throughput	255 tok/s via Wafer	Measuring
AI IQ	IQ 127 #22 on AI IQ	Unrated
Provider routes	26 with failover	0
Privacy	Confidential E2EE and zero retention route	Varies by provider
Recent route uptime range	66.67% to 100.00%	not enough data
Publisher	Kimi	Perplexity
Modes	chat	chat
More detail	Overview Pricing Providers	Overview

Price adds one million input and one million output tokens on the cheapest route. Prices and speed change: see the monthly reports and run a small eval before you choose a default.

Test both with your agent

Paste this into Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent.

Compare Kimi K3 and sonar in this project through TrustedRouter.

1. Read https://trustedrouter.com/docs/llms.txt
2. Point the OpenAI-compatible client at
   https://api.trustedrouter.com/v1 and read the key from
   TRUSTEDROUTER_API_KEY.
3. Run our eval prompts on moonshotai/kimi-k3, then on perplexity/sonar.
4. Show me cost, latency and quality side by side before changing the default.

import os
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.trustedrouter.com/v1",
    api_key=os.environ["TRUSTEDROUTER_API_KEY"],
)
for model in ("moonshotai/kimi-k3", "perplexity/sonar"):
    response = client.chat.completions.create(
        model=model,
        messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "What is the capital of France?"}],
    )
    print(model, response.choices[0].message.content)

for model in moonshotai/kimi-k3 perplexity/sonar; do
  curl https://api.trustedrouter.com/v1/chat/completions \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRUSTEDROUTER_API_KEY" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d "{\"model\": \"$model\", \"messages\": [{\"role\": \"user\", \"content\": \"What is the capital of France?\"}]}"
done

Your agent will need an API key.

Questions

Which should I use, MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 or sonar?

MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 has more Credits provider routes. A published Credits price comparison is not available for both models. There is not enough recent probe data to compare speed.

Is MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 or sonar cheaper?

The current cheapest TrustedRouter route is $11.97425/1M for MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 and $2.90125/1M for sonar. The comparison uses current catalog prices and updates as provider pricing changes.

Is MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 or sonar faster?

Current measured p50 time to first token is 823 ms for MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 and not enough data for sonar. These are routed probe measurements, not vendor-advertised speeds, and update as new samples arrive.

Can I test MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 and sonar with the same API?

Yes. Use the same OpenAI-compatible TrustedRouter base URL and API key, then change only the model id between moonshotai/kimi-k3 and perplexity/sonar. This makes side-by-side evals possible without maintaining two provider integrations.

More comparisons

All comparisons

Try Kimi K3 and sonar with one key.

TrustedRouter is useful when you know the model you want, but still need provider rollover, budget limits, usage records, and a prompt path you can verify.

One key routes both. Starter credit covers your first Kimi K3 requests, while sonar runs on your own provider key. Switch by changing the model name.