--- title: Ember-1 vs. Kimi K3: Nearly identical results at 3.4... description: An independent hands-on comparison tests Fireworks Research's Ember-1, a distilled version of Moonshot's Kimi K3, against the original across logic puzzles,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/ember-1-vs-kimi-k3-nearly-identical-results-at-3-4-times-the-speed-mhtlqgpyi twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Ember-1 vs. Kimi K3: Nearly identical results at 3.4 times the speed | daily.dev og:description: An independent hands-on comparison tests Fireworks Research's Ember-1, a distilled version of Moonshot's Kimi K3, against the original across logic puzzles,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/ember-1-vs-kimi-k3-nearly-identical-results-at-3-4-times-the-speed-mhtlqgpyi og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/MhtlqGPYI.png og:image:alt: Ember-1 vs. Kimi K3: Nearly identical results at 3.4 times the speed og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Ember-1 vs. Kimi K3: Nearly identical results at 3.4 times the speed **[The New Stack](https://daily.dev/sources/newstack)** · 12 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary An independent hands-on comparison tests Fireworks Research's Ember-1, a distilled version of Moonshot's Kimi K3, against the original across logic puzzles, deploy scheduling, and probability problems run five times each through OpenRouter. Ember-1 matched Kimi K3's accuracy nearly exactly (14/15 perfect runs vs 15/15) while using 23% fewer reasoning tokens and finishing 3.4 times faster, costing 24% less on Fireworks' pricing. However, since other providers sell Kimi K3 as low as $1/$9 per million tokens versus Fireworks' $3/$15, Kimi K3 can actually end up cheaper than Ember-1 despite being much slower. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How does Fireworks Ember-1 compare to Kimi K3 in accuracy and speed? Ember-1 achieved nearly identical accuracy to Kimi K3, scoring 14 out of 15 perfect runs across logic puzzles, deploy scheduling, and probability tests versus Kimi K3's 15 out of 15. Ember-1 used 23% fewer reasoning tokens and completed the test suite 3.4 times faster than Kimi K3 when both were run through Fireworks on OpenRouter. _daily.dev surfaces benchmarks like this for developers choosing between fast and cheap reasoning models._ ### Is Ember-1 cheaper than Kimi K3 to run? It depends on the provider. On Fireworks' own pricing ($3/$15 per million input/output tokens) Ember-1 cost $2.48 total versus Kimi K3's $3.26 across the test suite, a 24% saving. But other providers sell Kimi K3 as low as $1/$9 per million tokens, which would bring Kimi K3's cost down to $1.96, undercutting Ember-1. _Compare model pricing across providers on daily.dev before locking in a reasoning model choice._ ### What is Fireworks Ember-1 built on? Ember-1 is a research preview released by Fireworks Research on September 23, built on top of Moonshot's open-weight Kimi K3 model. Fireworks claims it matches Kimi K3's quality using roughly 40% fewer tokens by cutting unnecessary reasoning while retaining the reasoning that matters, since reasoning tokens are billed as output. _Track new open-weight model derivatives like this on daily.dev when evaluating reasoning-efficient LLMs._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Everyone Read Kimi K3 as a Price War. It Is the Opposite.](https://daily.dev/posts/everyone-read-kimi-k3-as-a-price-war-it-is-the-opposite--xshhpdjyb) · Medium · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [Moonshot AI’s Kimi K2.7-Code Targets Token Efficiency in Agentic Coding](https://daily.dev/posts/moonshot-ai-s-kimi-k2-7-code-targets-token-efficiency-in-agentic-coding-rpll6qhkm) · DevOps.com · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai), [#openrouter](https://daily.dev/tags/openrouter), [#kimi](https://daily.dev/tags/kimi) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/ember-1-vs-kimi-k3-nearly-identical-results-at-3-4-times-the-speed-mhtlqgpyi) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Ember-1 vs. Kimi K3: Nearly identical results at 3.4 times the speed","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/ember-1-vs-kimi-k3-nearly-identical-results-at-3-4-times-the-speed-mhtlqgpyi","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ember-1-vs-kimi-k3-nearly-identical-results-at-3-4-times-the-speed-mhtlqgpyi"},"datePublished":"2026-09-29T12:07:40.759Z","dateModified":"2026-09-29T12:08:25.577Z","description":"An independent hands-on comparison tests Fireworks Research's Ember-1, a distilled version of Moonshot's Kimi K3, against the original across logic puzzles,...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/5a5ea5be586635596cec2f3e07232099?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/5a5ea5be586635596cec2f3e07232099?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"The New Stack","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The New Stack","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/newstack","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/newstack"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/ember-1-vs-kimi-k3-nearly-identical-results-at-3-4-times-the-speed-mhtlqgpyi","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai,openrouter,kimi","timeRequired":"PT12M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The New Stack","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/newstack"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Ember-1 vs. Kimi K3: Nearly identical results at 3.4 times the speed"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ember-1-vs-kimi-k3-nearly-identical-results-at-3-4-times-the-speed-mhtlqgpyi#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How does Fireworks Ember-1 compare to Kimi K3 in accuracy and speed?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Ember-1 achieved nearly identical accuracy to Kimi K3, scoring 14 out of 15 perfect runs across logic puzzles, deploy scheduling, and probability tests versus Kimi K3's 15 out of 15. 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