Model comparison

MiniMax-M2.1 vs Mistral Medium 3.5

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.2 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 5.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Medium 3.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 11, 2026. 18 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2.1

MiniMax

38.9

Rank #178 Confirmed

Mistral Medium 3.5

Mistral AI

40.2

Rank #152 Confirmed

Summary

They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher in 2 categories and Mistral Medium 3.5 in 6 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in coding, where MiniMax-M2.1 leads 40.4 to 36.0.
MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
Mistral Medium 3.5 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 205K.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2.1 and Mistral Medium 3.5 specifications
	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Medium 3.5
Provider	MiniMax	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	38.9	40.2
Released	2025-12-23	—
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	205K	262K
Max output	131K	210K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$1.50
Output $ / M tokens	$1.20	$7.50
Results tracked	22	22

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143), Mistral Medium 3.5: 36.0 (#213)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena WebDev	1384	1264
LMArena Coding	1421	1461
ALE-Bench	623.83	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98), Mistral Medium 3.5: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Medium 3.5
Terminal-Bench	36.6%	—

Reasoning Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302), Mistral Medium 3.5: 17.3 (#295)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Medium 3.5
NYT Connections (extended)	11.2%	12.9%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1411	1436
Kagi LLM Benchmark	—	41.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	141.35

Math Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138), Mistral Medium 3.5: 39.1 (#113)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Math	1397	1431

Knowledge Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147), Mistral Medium 3.5: 40.0 (#126)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Expert	1431	1432
Vectara Hallucination Rate	11.8%	—

Multimodal Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: —, Mistral Medium 3.5: 38.3 (#65)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Vision	—	1223

Multilingual Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128), Mistral Medium 3.5: 51.9 (#100)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Non-English	1378	1404
LMArena Chinese	1430	1442
LMArena French	1404	1448
LMArena German	1381	1451
LMArena Korean	1298	1385
LMArena Russian	1387	1395
LMArena Spanish	1397	1409
LMArena Japanese	1287	—

Instruction Following Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112), Mistral Medium 3.5: 74.6 (#90)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Instruction Following	1400	1415

Long Context Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101), Mistral Medium 3.5: 43.2 (#103)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Longer Query	1416	1415

Writing & Preference Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120), Mistral Medium 3.5: 58.5 (#117)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Text	1392	1421
LMArena Creative Writing	1361	1374
LMArena Multi-Turn	1396	1423
EQ-Bench 4	—	993

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M2.1 better than Mistral Medium 3.5?

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.1 or Mistral Medium 3.5?

MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Mistral Medium 3.5 lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

Is MiniMax-M2.1 or Mistral Medium 3.5 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 36.0 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Medium 3.5 does, with 262K tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.1 and Mistral Medium 3.5 share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.1 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Medium 3.5 has 22.