Noometry

Model comparison

MiniMax-M2.1 vs Qwen3.5 35B-A3B

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.0 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 19 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2.1 MiniMax

38.9

Rank #178 Confirmed

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B Alibaba (Qwen)

42.0

Rank #123 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B in 4 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads 47.8 to 38.3.
  • MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $2 for Qwen3.5 35B-A3B.
  • Qwen3.5 35B-A3B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 205K.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2.1Qwen3.5 35B-A3B
ProviderMiniMaxAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index38.942.0
Released2025-12-232026-02-01
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window205K262K
Max output131K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.30$0.25
Output $ / M tokens$1.20$2
Results tracked2228

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 33.8 (#251)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Qwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena WebDev13841254
LMArena Coding14211410
SciCode—29.3%
ALE-Bench623.83—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: —

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Qwen3.5 35B-A3B
Terminal-Bench36.6%—

Reasoning Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 24.6 (#161)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Qwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Hard Prompts14111400
NYT Connections (extended)11.2%—
CritPt—0.6%
Chess Puzzles—10%
DTBench—80%
LMCA—29.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index—142.52

Math Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 39.9 (#97)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Qwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Math13971404
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions—56%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—70%

Knowledge Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 47.8 (#79)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Qwen3.5 35B-A3B
Vectara Hallucination Rate11.8%10.5%
LMArena Expert14311408
GPQA Diamond—83.5%

Multilingual Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 50.0 (#127)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Qwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Non-English13781378
LMArena Chinese14301457
LMArena French14041412
LMArena German13811367
LMArena Japanese12871325
LMArena Korean12981356
LMArena Russian13871376
LMArena Spanish13971392

Instruction Following MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 72.8 (#128)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Qwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Instruction Following14001379

Long Context Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 42.4 (#127)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Qwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Longer Query14161389

Writing & Preference Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 57.9 (#124)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Qwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Text13921395
LMArena Creative Writing13611346
LMArena Multi-Turn13961390

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M2.1 better than Qwen3.5 35B-A3B?

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.0 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.1 or Qwen3.5 35B-A3B?

MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 35B-A3B lists at $0.25 and $2.

Is MiniMax-M2.1 or Qwen3.5 35B-A3B better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 33.8 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B does, with 262K tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.1 and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B share?

19 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.1 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B has 28.

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