Noometry

Model comparison

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite vs MiniMax-M2.1

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.4 to 38.4 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 21 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Google

40.4

Rank #141 Confirmed

MiniMax-M2.1 MiniMax

38.4

Rank #177 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite scores higher in 6 categories and MiniMax-M2.1 in 3 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads 22.3 to 15.8.
  • MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $1.50 for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite.
  • Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 205K.
  • MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemini 3.1 Flash LiteMiniMax-M2.1
ProviderGoogleMiniMax
Noometry Index40.438.4
Released2026-03-032025-12-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M205K
Max output66K131K
Input $ / M tokens$0.25$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$1.50$1.20
Results tracked3822

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 37.5 (#179), MiniMax-M2.1: 40.1 (#132)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena WebDev12561384
LMArena Coding14001421
ALE-Bench797.73623.83
SciCode41.9%—
WeirdML52.2%—

Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 29.9 (#72), MiniMax-M2.1: 27.7 (#91)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteMiniMax-M2.1
Terminal-Bench—36.6%
DeepResearch Bench37.3%—

Reasoning Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 22.3 (#181), MiniMax-M2.1: 15.8 (#301)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteMiniMax-M2.1
NYT Connections (extended)8.2%11.2%
LMArena Hard Prompts14071410
Kagi LLM Benchmark67.2%—
CritPt1.1%—
Chess Puzzles25%—
EnigmaEval3%—
Thematic Generalization63.3%—
DTBench76.8%—
LMCA35%—
Epoch Capabilities Index144.45—
ForecastBench54.4—

Math Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 39.5 (#82), MiniMax-M2.1: 35.6 (#142)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Math14271396
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)27.7%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202580%—

Knowledge Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 41.7 (#95), MiniMax-M2.1: 37.7 (#143)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteMiniMax-M2.1
Vectara Hallucination Rate8.2%11.8%
LMArena Expert13971432
GPQA Diamond81.8%—
Humanity's Last Exam8.6%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 38.7 (#57), MiniMax-M2.1: —

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Vision1240—

Multilingual Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 52.5 (#82), MiniMax-M2.1: 50.2 (#123)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Non-English14101378
LMArena Chinese14611430
LMArena French14231405
LMArena German14291380
LMArena Japanese14111287
LMArena Korean13931297
LMArena Russian14201386
LMArena Spanish14201396

Instruction Following MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 72.9 (#126), MiniMax-M2.1: 74.0 (#108)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Instruction Following13761399

Long Context Too close to call

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 42.5 (#117), MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#98)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Longer Query13941416

Writing & Preference Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 61.0 (#90), MiniMax-M2.1: 58.5 (#114)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Text14161392
LMArena Creative Writing14011362
LMArena Multi-Turn14171396

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite better than MiniMax-M2.1?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.4 to 38.4 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite 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; Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite lists at $0.25 and $1.50.

Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite or MiniMax-M2.1 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.1 versus 37.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and MiniMax-M2.1 share?

21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite has 38 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.1 has 22.

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