Moonshot AI Vision Models

Compare both Moonshot AI vision models we track, all of them open-weight. Try them on your own images, free in the Roboflow Playground.

2 models · 2 open-weight · 2 free to try · Updated Jul 2026

About Moonshot AI Vision Models

Every Moonshot AI vision model in our catalog is open-weight. Both publish downloadable weights, so you can self-host under their own licenses instead of paying per request. The open-weight side runs on Modified MIT terms. The newest additions are Kimi K3 (Jul 2026) and Kimi K2.5 (Jan 2026).

Between them, the Moonshot AI models we list cover 10 distinct vision tasks. The widest coverage is captioning (2 models), chart question answering (2), and classification (2). For captioning, start with Kimi K3 or Kimi K2.5.

Both carry a permissive license, so commercial use is straightforward.

With every model here open-weight, the real trade is size against generality: the smaller checkpoints fine-tune and deploy cheaply on your own hardware, while the larger ones cover more ground out of the box. Both Moonshot AI vision models run live in the Roboflow Playground, so you can run the same image through both and compare the answers before committing to one.

Which Moonshot AI Model Should You Use?

What each of the 2 Moonshot AI vision models in our catalog is built for, and how you run it.

Kimi K3: Best for: Object Detection and OCR. Open weights: Modified MIT license, 2.8T parameters. Self-host it or run it here. Runnable in the Playground.
Kimi K2.5: Best for: OCR and Document Question Answering. Open weights: Modified MIT license, 1T parameters. Self-host it or run it here. Runnable in the Playground.

Open-Source Moonshot AI Models

2 models with downloadable weights you can self-host under their licenses (Modified MIT). All run live in the Playground through hosted APIs, so self-hosting is optional.

Kimi K3

Kimi K3 is a sparse Mixture-of-Experts large language model developed by Moonshot AI, with 2.8 trillion total parameters and a 1-million-token context window. The model activates 16 out of 896 experts per token using the Stable LatentMoE framework, and is built on two architectural innovations: Kimi Delta Attention (KDA), a hybrid linear attention mechanism that enables up to 6.3x faster decoding in long-context settings, and Attention Residuals (AttnRes), which selectively retrieves representations across model depth and delivers roughly 25% higher training efficiency. Together with refined training and data recipes, these structural advances yield approximately 2.5x better overall scaling efficiency compared to its predecessor Kimi K2. The model applies quantization-aware training from the supervised fine-tuning stage onward, using MXFP4 weights with MXFP8 activations for hardware compatibility. Thinking mode is always enabled at launch, with reasoning effort configurable via the reasoning_effort field.Kimi K3 supports native visual understanding alongside text, accepting image inputs for tasks that combine software engineering and visual reasoning. It targets long-horizon coding, knowledge work, and agentic workflows, and ships in two variants: K3 Max for general chat and agent tasks, and K3 Swarm Max for large-scale parallel processing across many coordinated sub-agents. The model is compatible with the OpenAI SDK via an OpenAI-compatible API. Full model weights are scheduled for release by July 27, 2026 under a Modified MIT license, following the open-weight pattern established by the Kimi K2 model family. A technical report with full architecture, training, and evaluation details is expected to accompany the weights release.

Kimi K2.5

Kimi K2.5 is a frontier-scale multimodal AI model developed by Moonshot AI and released on January 27, 2026. As a significant advancement within the Kimi K2 family, it utilizes a sparse Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture with 1 trillion total parameters (32 billion active per inference) and a massive 256K-token context window. The model features native multimodal integration via a 400M-parameter MoonViT encoder, allowing it to process text, images, and video frames simultaneously. Built for both speed and depth, it offers "Instant" and "Thinking" modes, the latter of which excels at expert-level reasoning, scoring 50.2% on the Humanity’s Last Exam (HLE) benchmark when equipped with tools.The model is released under a Modified MIT License, which remains open-weight but requires attribution for high-revenue commercial entities. It introduces an "Agent Swarm" paradigm capable of coordinating up to 100 specialized sub-agents for parallel workflows, significantly reducing latency in complex research tasks. For vision tasks, Kimi K2.5 demonstrates strong autonomous visual debugging capabilities, where it can inspect its own generated UI outputs against visual specifications to iteratively refine frontend code. This makes it a powerful choice for developers testing automated UI reconstruction, high-fidelity OCR document processing, and multi-step agentic research grounded in complex visual data.

Frequently Asked Questions About Moonshot AI Vision Models

Which Moonshot AI models can do captioning?

2 of the 2 Moonshot AI vision models we track handle captioning: Kimi K3 and Kimi K2.5. Each model page lists its full task coverage, license, and specs.

Which Moonshot AI models can do chart question answering?

2 of the 2 Moonshot AI vision models we track handle chart question answering: Kimi K3 and Kimi K2.5. Each model page lists its full task coverage, license, and specs.

Are Moonshot AI vision models open source?

Yes. Both Moonshot AI vision models we track publish downloadable weights you can self-host under their licenses (Modified MIT).

What is the best Moonshot AI model for captioning?

We do not publish a Moonshot AI-only ranking, so pick on constraints rather than a label. 2 Moonshot AI models handle captioning; the most recent is Kimi K3 (Jul 2026). For fixed categories in production, a model fine-tuned on your own data typically beats any general-purpose model.

How many Moonshot AI vision models are on Roboflow Playground?

We track 2 live Moonshot AI vision models. The most recent addition is Kimi K3, released Jul 2026.

Can I try Moonshot AI vision models for free?

Yes. Both Moonshot AI models run live in the Roboflow Playground. Upload your own image, run several models on it at once, and compare the outputs side by side. No setup and no account required.

This page lists both Moonshot AI vision models in the Roboflow Playground catalog, all of them open-weight and free to self-host. They cover captioning, chart question answering, and classification, among other tasks. All of them run live in the Roboflow Playground on your own images. Compare licenses, parameters, prices, and release dates side by side, or open any model page for full details.