Model comparison

Granite 4.0 Micro vs MiniMax-M2.1

MiniMax-M2.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.4 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 13× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 0 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.0 Micro IBM

28.8

Rank #312 Confirmed

MiniMax-M2.1

MiniMax

38.4

Rank #177 Confirmed

Summary

The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M2.1 leads 37.7 to 9.9.
Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.1.
MiniMax-M2.1 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Granite 4.0 Micro and MiniMax-M2.1 specifications
	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
Provider	IBM	MiniMax
Noometry Index	28.8	38.4
Released	2025-10-02	2025-12-23
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	205K
Max output	118K	131K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.017	$0.30
Output $ / M tokens	$0.11	$1.20
Results tracked	8	22

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Granite 4.0 Micro: —, MiniMax-M2.1: 40.1 (#132)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena WebDev	—	1384
LMArena Coding	—	1421
ALE-Bench	—	623.83

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 4.0 Micro: —, MiniMax-M2.1: 27.7 (#91)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
Terminal-Bench	—	36.6%

Reasoning Granite 4.0 Micro leads

Granite 4.0 Micro: 18.5 (#261), MiniMax-M2.1: 15.8 (#301)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
NYT Connections (extended)	—	11.2%
Chess Puzzles	0%	—
LMArena Hard Prompts	—	1410

Math MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Granite 4.0 Micro: 11.2 (#301), MiniMax-M2.1: 35.6 (#142)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	2.8%	—
Omni-MATH	20.9%	—
LMArena Math	—	1396

Knowledge MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#299), MiniMax-M2.1: 37.7 (#143)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
GPQA Diamond	28.3%	—
MMLU-Pro	39.5%	—
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	11.8%
GPQA (HELM)	30.7%	—
LMArena Expert	—	1432

Multilingual Not comparable

Granite 4.0 Micro: —, MiniMax-M2.1: 50.2 (#123)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Non-English	—	1378
LMArena Chinese	—	1430
LMArena French	—	1405
LMArena German	—	1380
LMArena Japanese	—	1287
LMArena Korean	—	1297
LMArena Russian	—	1386
LMArena Spanish	—	1396

Instruction Following MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Granite 4.0 Micro: 70.0 (#164), MiniMax-M2.1: 74.0 (#108)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
IFEval	84.9%	—
LMArena Instruction Following	—	1399

Long Context Not comparable

Granite 4.0 Micro: —, MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#98)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Longer Query	—	1416

Writing & Preference MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#212), MiniMax-M2.1: 58.5 (#114)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Text	—	1392
LMArena Creative Writing	—	1362
WildBench	67%	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	—	1396

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than MiniMax-M2.1?

Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or MiniMax-M2.1?

Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2.1 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M2.1 does, with 205K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and MiniMax-M2.1 share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.1 has 22.