Noometry

Model comparison

Amazon Nova Lite vs MiniMax-M2.1

MiniMax-M2.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.9 to 31.9 on the Noometry Index. Amazon Nova Lite costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 19 shared benchmarks.

Amazon Nova Lite Amazon

31.9

Rank #265 Confirmed

MiniMax-M2.1 MiniMax

38.9

Rank #178 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. Amazon Nova Lite scores higher in 1 category and MiniMax-M2.1 in 7 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where MiniMax-M2.1 leads 58.3 to 42.1.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Vectara Hallucination Rate: 6.1% for Amazon Nova Lite and 11.8% for MiniMax-M2.1.
  • Amazon Nova Lite is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.24 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.1.
  • Amazon Nova Lite accepts more context: 300K tokens versus 205K.
  • MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Amazon Nova LiteMiniMax-M2.1
ProviderAmazonMiniMax
Noometry Index31.938.9
Released2024-12-032025-12-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window300K205K
Max output10K131K
Input $ / M tokens$0.06$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$0.24$1.20
Results tracked3422

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Amazon Nova Lite: 32.5 (#270), MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143)

BenchmarkAmazon Nova LiteMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Coding12391421
ALE-Bench236.25623.83
LMArena WebDev—1384
LiveBench Coding27.5%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Amazon Nova Lite: —, MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98)

BenchmarkAmazon Nova LiteMiniMax-M2.1
Terminal-Bench—36.6%

Reasoning Amazon Nova Lite leads

Amazon Nova Lite: 19.3 (#260), MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302)

BenchmarkAmazon Nova LiteMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Hard Prompts12201411
NYT Connections (extended)—11.2%
LiveBench Reasoning36.7%—
LiveBench Data Analysis37.2%—
LiveBench36.4%—

Math MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Amazon Nova Lite: 27.8 (#247), MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138)

BenchmarkAmazon Nova LiteMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Math12271397
Omni-MATH23.3%—
LiveBench Math36.7%—

Knowledge MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Amazon Nova Lite: 26.3 (#259), MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147)

BenchmarkAmazon Nova LiteMiniMax-M2.1
Vectara Hallucination Rate6.1%11.8%
LMArena Expert12011431
Humanity's Last Exam3.6%—
MMLU-Pro60%—
GPQA (HELM)39.7%—
MMLU77%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Amazon Nova Lite: 25.5 (#123), MiniMax-M2.1: —

BenchmarkAmazon Nova LiteMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Vision990—

Multilingual MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Amazon Nova Lite: 38.0 (#232), MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128)

BenchmarkAmazon Nova LiteMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Non-English12081378
LMArena Chinese12251430
LMArena French12371404
LMArena German12291381
LMArena Japanese11531287
LMArena Korean11531298
LMArena Russian12161387
LMArena Spanish12261397

Instruction Following MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Amazon Nova Lite: 59.3 (#255), MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112)

BenchmarkAmazon Nova LiteMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Instruction Following12051400
LiveBench Instruction Following54.1%—
IFEval77.6%—

Long Context MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Amazon Nova Lite: 37.4 (#217), MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101)

BenchmarkAmazon Nova LiteMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Longer Query12341416

Writing & Preference MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Amazon Nova Lite: 42.1 (#237), MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120)

BenchmarkAmazon Nova LiteMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Text12291392
LMArena Creative Writing11971361
LMArena Multi-Turn11991396
WildBench75%—
LiveBench Language25.9%—

Frequently asked questions

Is Amazon Nova Lite better than MiniMax-M2.1?

MiniMax-M2.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.9 to 31.9 on the Noometry Index. Amazon Nova Lite costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Amazon Nova Lite or MiniMax-M2.1?

Amazon Nova Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.24 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2.1 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

Is Amazon Nova Lite or MiniMax-M2.1 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 32.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Amazon Nova Lite does, with 300K tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do Amazon Nova Lite and MiniMax-M2.1 share?

19 benchmarks have published results for both models. Amazon Nova Lite has 34 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.1 has 22.

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