If you only read one line: pick by workload, not by benchmark charts.
For Reading long reports and papers; Organizing Chinese source material, Kimi is the more direct fit. For Research where sources must be checkable; Fact-checking a claim quickly, Perplexity gets there with less fighting.
Both have free tiers, so cost only separates them once you hit the limits. Context limits aren't published for both, so treat this as untested until you hit the ceiling yourself.
| Dimension | Kimi | Perplexity |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing | Membership annual plans work out to CNY 39 / 79 / 159 / 559 / 1,119 per month, alongside a free tier; API K3.1 Pro CNY 13 input and CNY 68 output per million tokens (CNY 1.3 on cache hits) (checked 2026-10-29) | Free $0; Pro $20/mo ($200/yr); Max $200/mo ($2,000/yr); Education Pro $10/mo for verified students; Enterprise Pro $40/seat/mo; Enterprise Max $325/seat/mo (checked 2026-10-29) |
| Context window | 1,048,576 tokens (K3 series); 262,144 tokens on the K2 series (checked 2026-10-29) | not published |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android | Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows |
| Best for | Reading long reports and papers; Organizing Chinese source material; Light agent and research tasks | Research where sources must be checkable; Fact-checking a claim quickly; Students who need citations |
| Availability | Directly reachable in mainland China with no proxy, and platform.kimi.com serves the China region (checked 2026-10-29). | Unreachable from mainland China without a proxy, confirmed by a blocked connection from this host on 2026-10-29, and there is no China edition. |
Reading long reports and papers; Organizing Chinese source material; Light agent and research tasks. Its strongest point: Swallows a whole book and answers against the full text. Watch out for: Concurrency limits bite at Chinese peak times.
Research where sources must be checkable; Fact-checking a claim quickly; Students who need citations. Its strongest point: Every answer carries clickable source links you can audit. Watch out for: Free tier caps you at 3 Pro Searches a day.
Most people I know keep both tabs open — one for finding things, one for producing the final draft — and stop paying for whichever they touch last.
Kimi if you want Reading long reports and papers. Perplexity if Research where sources must be checkable. Neither has a learning curve worth worrying about past the first day.
Yes — both have free tiers, and the pair covers more ground than either alone.
Context limits aren't published for both, so treat this as untested until you hit the ceiling yourself.