Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Opus 5.5 vs MiniMax-M2.1

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 15× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic

68.6

Rank #3 Confirmed

MiniMax-M2.1 MiniMax

38.9

Rank #178 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher in 9 categories and MiniMax-M2.1 in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Opus 5.5 leads 80.2 to 16.6.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 88.5% for Claude Opus 5.5 and 11.2% for MiniMax-M2.1.
  • MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $4 / $20 for Claude Opus 5.5.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 205K.
  • MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Opus 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
ProviderAnthropicMiniMax
Noometry Index68.638.9
Released2026-09-222025-12-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M205K
Max output128K131K
Input $ / M tokens$4$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$20$1.20
Results tracked4422

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 71.9 (#3), MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena WebDev18131384
LMArena Coding15471421
ALE-Bench2,147623.83
FrontierCode54.6%—
CursorBench57.8%—
FrontierSWE62.3%—
SciCode66.9%—
MirrorCode77.4%—

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 45.3 (#15), MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
Terminal-Bench—36.6%
APEX-Agents73.5%—
GDP.pdf30.6%—
Vending-Bench 29,235—

Reasoning Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.2 (#3), MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
NYT Connections (extended)88.5%11.2%
LMArena Hard Prompts15351411
ARC-AGI-293.3%—
ARC-AGI-198.5%—
CritPt31.7%—
EBR-Bench71.4%—
Mystery Game Puzzles71%—
DTBench98.9%—
LMCA68.2%—
Epoch Capabilities Index167.33—

Math Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 91.8 (#3), MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Math15061397
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)91.2%—
FrontierMath Tier 495%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025100%—
ProofBench100%—
FrontierMath Erdős2.9%—

Knowledge Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 66.4 (#10), MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Expert15471431
GPQA Diamond90.6%—
SimpleQA Verified72.2%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate—11.8%

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 57.8 (#1), MiniMax-M2.1: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Vision1321—
Blueprint-Bench 251.2%—
Furniture Assembly83.3%—

Multilingual Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 59.1 (#2), MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Non-English15071378
LMArena Chinese15881430
LMArena French15141404
LMArena Russian15201387
LMArena Spanish15071397
LMArena German—1381
LMArena Japanese—1287
LMArena Korean—1298

Instruction Following Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.0 (#3), MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Instruction Following15371400

Long Context Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 47.1 (#19), MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Longer Query15321416

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 78.2 (#3), MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Text15151392
LMArena Creative Writing15331361
LMArena Multi-Turn14991396
EQ-Bench Creative Writing2050—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than MiniMax-M2.1?

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 15× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5.5 or MiniMax-M2.1?

MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 5.5 lists at $4 and $20.

Is Claude Opus 5.5 or MiniMax-M2.1 better for coding?

Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 71.9 versus 40.4 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 5.5 does, with 1M tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 5.5 and MiniMax-M2.1 share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 5.5 has 44 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.1 has 22.

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