Model comparison

MiniMax-M2.1 vs Mistral Small

MiniMax-M2.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.9 to 33.4 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small costs 2.0× 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. 19 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2.1

MiniMax

38.9

Rank #178 Confirmed

Mistral Small

Mistral AI

33.4

Rank #243 Confirmed

Summary

They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher in 7 categories and Mistral Small in 2 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where MiniMax-M2.1 leads 38.3 to 16.4.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is Vectara Hallucination Rate: 11.8% for MiniMax-M2.1 and 5.1% for Mistral Small.
Mistral Small is cheaper at $0.15 / $0.60 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.1.
Mistral Small accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 205K.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2.1 and Mistral Small specifications
	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small
Provider	MiniMax	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	38.9	33.4
Released	2025-12-23	2024-02-26
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	205K	262K
Max output	131K	256K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$0.15
Output $ / M tokens	$1.20	$0.60
Results tracked	22	39

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143), Mistral Small: 34.0 (#247)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small
LMArena Coding	1421	1362
ALE-Bench	623.83	497.62
LMArena WebDev	1384	—
SciCode	—	26.5%
BigCodeBench Instruct	—	36.1%
LiveBench Coding	—	36.2%
BigCodeBench Complete	—	46.6%

Agentic & Tool Use Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98), Mistral Small: 28.1 (#93)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small
Terminal-Bench	36.6%	—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	—	37.1%

Reasoning Mistral Small leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302), Mistral Small: 19.8 (#250)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small
LMArena Hard Prompts	1411	1335
Kagi LLM Benchmark	—	37.8%
NYT Connections (extended)	11.2%	—
CritPt	—	0%
LiveBench Reasoning	—	44.8%
DTBench	—	70.9%
LiveBench Data Analysis	—	53.7%
LMCA	—	20.6%
LiveBench	—	44%

Math MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138), Mistral Small: 16.4 (#293)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small
LMArena Math	1397	1341
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	5.8%
LiveBench Math	—	39.9%
MATH Level 5	—	46.8%

Knowledge MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147), Mistral Small: 31.0 (#222)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small
Vectara Hallucination Rate	11.8%	5.1%
LMArena Expert	1431	1291
GPQA Diamond	—	47.5%
MMLU	—	68.7%

Multimodal Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: —, Mistral Small: 33.5 (#96)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small
LMArena Vision	—	1142

Multilingual MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128), Mistral Small: 45.5 (#169)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small
LMArena Non-English	1378	1315
LMArena Chinese	1430	1340
LMArena French	1404	1337
LMArena German	1381	1340
LMArena Japanese	1287	1275
LMArena Korean	1298	1259
LMArena Russian	1387	1324
LMArena Spanish	1397	1346

Instruction Following MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112), Mistral Small: 66.4 (#209)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small
LMArena Instruction Following	1400	1310
LiveBench Instruction Following	—	63.7%

Long Context MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101), Mistral Small: 40.4 (#156)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small
LMArena Longer Query	1416	1327

Writing & Preference MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120), Mistral Small: 52.5 (#171)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small
LMArena Text	1392	1338
LMArena Creative Writing	1361	1305
LMArena Multi-Turn	1396	1344
LiveBench Language	—	30.5%

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M2.1 better than Mistral Small?

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

Mistral Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.60 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2.1 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

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

MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 34.0 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Small does, with 262K tokens against 205K.

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

19 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.1 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small has 39.