Noometry

Model comparison

MiniMax-M2.1 vs Mistral Small 3.1

MiniMax-M2.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.4 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2.1 MiniMax

38.4

Rank #177 Confirmed

Mistral Small 3.1 Mistral AI

31.4

Rank #263 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher in 7 categories and Mistral Small 3.1 in 1 category; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where MiniMax-M2.1 leads 35.6 to 13.7.
  • Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper at $0.35 / $0.56 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.1.
  • MiniMax-M2.1 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 128K.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2.1Mistral Small 3.1
ProviderMiniMaxMistral AI
Noometry Index38.431.4
Released2025-12-232025-03-17
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window205K128K
Max output131K102K
Input $ / M tokens$0.30$0.35
Output $ / M tokens$1.20$0.56
Results tracked2228

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 40.1 (#132), Mistral Small 3.1: 37.7 (#175)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Coding14211309
LMArena WebDev1384—
ALE-Bench623.83—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: 27.7 (#91), Mistral Small 3.1: —

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Mistral Small 3.1
Terminal-Bench36.6%—

Reasoning Mistral Small 3.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 15.8 (#301), Mistral Small 3.1: 18.9 (#249)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Hard Prompts14101278
NYT Connections (extended)11.2%—
Chess Puzzles—1%
Epoch Capabilities Index—127.48

Math MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 35.6 (#142), Mistral Small 3.1: 13.7 (#295)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Math13961261
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—3.9%
Omni-MATH—24.8%

Knowledge MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 37.7 (#143), Mistral Small 3.1: 22.6 (#266)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Expert14321258
GPQA Diamond—41.9%
MMLU-Pro—61%
Vectara Hallucination Rate11.8%—
GPQA (HELM)—39.2%

Multimodal Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: —, Mistral Small 3.1: 32.6 (#93)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Vision—1136

Multilingual MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 50.2 (#123), Mistral Small 3.1: 41.4 (#204)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Non-English13781255
LMArena Chinese14301254
LMArena French14051270
LMArena German13801266
LMArena Japanese12871210
LMArena Korean12971206
LMArena Russian13861263
LMArena Spanish13961283

Instruction Following MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 74.0 (#108), Mistral Small 3.1: 63.8 (#225)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Instruction Following13991264
IFEval—75%

Long Context MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#98), Mistral Small 3.1: 39.5 (#172)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Longer Query14161300

Writing & Preference MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 58.5 (#114), Mistral Small 3.1: 37.2 (#254)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Text13921278
LMArena Creative Writing13621253
LMArena Multi-Turn13961270
EQ-Bench Creative Writing—761
WildBench—78.8%

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M2.1 better than Mistral Small 3.1?

MiniMax-M2.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.4 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.1 or Mistral Small 3.1?

Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.35 per million input tokens and $0.56 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2.1 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

Is MiniMax-M2.1 or Mistral Small 3.1 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.1 versus 37.7 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M2.1 does, with 205K tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.1 and Mistral Small 3.1 share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.1 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3.1 has 28.

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