Model comparison

MiniMax-M2.1 vs Mistral Small 3.2

MiniMax-M2.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.9 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.2 costs 4.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 11, 2026. 0 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2.1

MiniMax

38.9

Rank #178 Confirmed

Mistral Small 3.2

Mistral AI

31.2

Rank #280 Confirmed

Summary

The widest gap is in writing & preference, where MiniMax-M2.1 leads 58.3 to 45.0.
Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper at $0.0938 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.1.
Mistral Small 3.2 accepts more context: 256K tokens versus 205K.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2.1 and Mistral Small 3.2 specifications
	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small 3.2
Provider	MiniMax	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	38.9	31.2
Released	2025-12-23	2025-06-20
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	205K	256K
Max output	131K	16K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$0.0938
Output $ / M tokens	$1.20	$0.25
Results tracked	22	6

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small 3.2
LMArena WebDev	1384	—
LMArena Coding	1421	—
ALE-Bench	623.83	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small 3.2
Terminal-Bench	36.6%	—

Reasoning Mistral Small 3.2 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302), Mistral Small 3.2: 18.1 (#287)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small 3.2
Kagi LLM Benchmark	—	40.4%
NYT Connections (extended)	11.2%	—
Chess Puzzles	—	1%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1411	—
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	131.74

Math MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138), Mistral Small 3.2: 26.3 (#260)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small 3.2
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	30.3%
LMArena Math	1397	—

Knowledge MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147), Mistral Small 3.2: 26.7 (#256)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small 3.2
GPQA Diamond	—	49.1%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	11.8%	—
LMArena Expert	1431	—

Multilingual Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small 3.2
LMArena Non-English	1378	—
LMArena Chinese	1430	—
LMArena French	1404	—
LMArena German	1381	—
LMArena Japanese	1287	—
LMArena Korean	1298	—
LMArena Russian	1387	—
LMArena Spanish	1397	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small 3.2
LMArena Instruction Following	1400	—

Long Context Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small 3.2
LMArena Longer Query	1416	—

Writing & Preference MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120), Mistral Small 3.2: 45.0 (#224)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Mistral Small 3.2
LMArena Text	1392	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1361	—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	—	1255
LMArena Multi-Turn	1396	—

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M2.1 better than Mistral Small 3.2?

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.1 or Mistral Small 3.2?

Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.0938 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2.1 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Small 3.2 does, with 256K tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.1 and Mistral Small 3.2 share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.1 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3.2 has 6.