Model comparison

MiniMax-M2.1 vs Qwen3.5-9B

MiniMax-M2.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.4 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 4.7× 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. 1 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2.1

MiniMax

38.4

Rank #177 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-9B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.3

Rank #235 Confirmed

Summary

They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen3.5-9B in 2 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in agentic & tool use, where MiniMax-M2.1 leads 27.7 to 14.4.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench: 36.6% for MiniMax-M2.1 and 9.2% for Qwen3.5-9B.
Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.1.
Qwen3.5-9B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 205K.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2.1 and Qwen3.5-9B specifications
	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5-9B
Provider	MiniMax	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	38.4	33.3
Released	2025-12-23	2026-02-23
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	205K	262K
Max output	131K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$0.10
Output $ / M tokens	$1.20	$0.15
Results tracked	22	10

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 40.1 (#132), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.3 (#213)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena WebDev	1384	—
SciCode	—	27.5%
LMArena Coding	1421	—
ALE-Bench	623.83	—

Agentic & Tool Use MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 27.7 (#91), Qwen3.5-9B: 14.4 (#143)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5-9B
Terminal-Bench	36.6%	9.2%

Reasoning Qwen3.5-9B leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 15.8 (#301), Qwen3.5-9B: 22.5 (#178)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5-9B
NYT Connections (extended)	11.2%	—
CritPt	—	0.3%
Chess Puzzles	—	12%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1410	—
DTBench	—	71.2%
LMCA	—	24.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	139.45

Math MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 35.6 (#142), Qwen3.5-9B: 33.5 (#174)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5-9B
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions	—	48.5%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	61.7%
LMArena Math	1396	—

Knowledge Qwen3.5-9B leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 37.7 (#143), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#77)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5-9B
GPQA Diamond	—	79%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	11.8%	—
LMArena Expert	1432	—

Multilingual Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: 50.2 (#123), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Non-English	1378	—
LMArena Chinese	1430	—
LMArena French	1405	—
LMArena German	1380	—
LMArena Japanese	1287	—
LMArena Korean	1297	—
LMArena Russian	1386	—
LMArena Spanish	1396	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: 74.0 (#108), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Instruction Following	1399	—

Long Context Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#98), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Longer Query	1416	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: 58.5 (#114), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Text	1392	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1362	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1396	—

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M2.1 better than Qwen3.5-9B?

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.1 or Qwen3.5-9B?

Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2.1 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

Is MiniMax-M2.1 or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.1 versus 35.3 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5-9B does, with 262K tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.1 and Qwen3.5-9B share?

1 benchmark has published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.1 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.