Model comparison
MiniMax M1 vs Ministral 8B
MiniMax M1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.3 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 6.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax M1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.
MiniMax
Mistral AISummary
- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax M1 scores higher in 8 categories and Ministral 8B in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax M1 leads 36.4 to 12.6.
- Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.15 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.55 / $2.20 for MiniMax M1.
- MiniMax M1 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
Side by side
| MiniMax M1 | Ministral 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 40.3 | 28.2 |
| Released | 2025-06-13 | 2024-10-01 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 40K | 262K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.55 | $0.15 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2.20 | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 18 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding MiniMax M1 leads
MiniMax M1: 39.9 (#153), Ministral 8B: 35.0 (#230)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1359 | 1202 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
MiniMax M1: —, Ministral 8B: 16.4 (#148)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 11.1% |
Reasoning MiniMax M1 leads
MiniMax M1: 26.9 (#126), Ministral 8B: 18.4 (#281)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1339 | 1191 |
| DTBench | — | 45.7% |
Math MiniMax M1 leads
MiniMax M1: 37.5 (#151), Ministral 8B: 25.7 (#267)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1361 | 1188 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 14.9% |
Knowledge MiniMax M1 leads
MiniMax M1: 36.4 (#170), Ministral 8B: 12.6 (#297)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1317 | 1170 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 27.1% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 7.4% |
Multilingual MiniMax M1 leads
MiniMax M1: 45.8 (#163), Ministral 8B: 35.1 (#247)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1319 | 1165 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1360 | 1193 |
| LMArena Russian | 1329 | 1195 |
| LMArena French | 1370 | — |
| LMArena German | 1350 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1217 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1266 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1353 | — |
Instruction Following MiniMax M1 leads
MiniMax M1: 69.3 (#174), Ministral 8B: 60.5 (#250)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1312 | 1161 |
Long Context MiniMax M1 leads
MiniMax M1: 41.4 (#141), Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#227)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1326 | 1212 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 69.4% | — |
Writing & Preference MiniMax M1 leads
MiniMax M1: 53.1 (#161), Ministral 8B: 39.6 (#246)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1343 | 1191 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1298 | 1175 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1335 | 1166 |
Frequently asked questions
Is MiniMax M1 better than Ministral 8B?
MiniMax M1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.3 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 6.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax M1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax M1 or Ministral 8B?
Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; MiniMax M1 lists at $0.55 and $2.20.
Is MiniMax M1 or Ministral 8B better for coding?
MiniMax M1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.9 versus 35.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
MiniMax M1 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do MiniMax M1 and Ministral 8B share?
12 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax M1 has 18 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 8B has 17.