Model comparison

MiniMax-M2.1 vs Qwen3.5 Plus

Qwen3.5 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 38.4 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 1.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 2 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2.1

MiniMax

38.4

Rank #177 Confirmed

Qwen3.5 Plus

Alibaba (Qwen)

42.3

Rank #103 Confirmed

Summary

They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3.5 Plus in 3 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3.5 Plus leads 32.0 to 15.8.
MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $2.40 for Qwen3.5 Plus.
Qwen3.5 Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 205K.
MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2.1 and Qwen3.5 Plus specifications
	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5 Plus
Provider	MiniMax	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	38.4	42.3
Released	2025-12-23	2026-02-16
Weights	Open	Proprietary
Context window	205K	1M
Max output	131K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$0.40
Output $ / M tokens	$1.20	$2.40
Results tracked	22	15

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: 40.1 (#132), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5 Plus
ALE-Bench	623.83	621.92
LMArena WebDev	1384	—
LMArena Coding	1421	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: 27.7 (#91), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5 Plus
Terminal-Bench	36.6%	—
Vending-Bench 2	—	0.54

Reasoning Qwen3.5 Plus leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 15.8 (#301), Qwen3.5 Plus: 32.0 (#67)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5 Plus
NYT Connections (extended)	11.2%	—
Chess Puzzles	—	22%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1410	—
Mystery Game Puzzles	—	17%
DTBench	—	80.5%
LMCA	—	36.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	146.79

Math Qwen3.5 Plus leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 35.6 (#142), Qwen3.5 Plus: 47.9 (#55)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5 Plus
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	86.7%
LMArena Math	1396	—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)	—	21%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)	—	2.1%

Knowledge Qwen3.5 Plus leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 37.7 (#143), Qwen3.5 Plus: 46.0 (#78)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5 Plus
Vectara Hallucination Rate	11.8%	10.7%
GPQA Diamond	—	84.8%
SimpleQA Verified	—	25.4%
LMArena Expert	1432	—

Multilingual Not comparable

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

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5 Plus
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 Plus: —

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

Long Context Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#98), Qwen3.5 Plus: 42.9 (#109)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.1	Qwen3.5 Plus
CL-bench	—	19.8%
CL-bench Life	—	12.4%
LMArena Longer Query	1416	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

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

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

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M2.1 better than Qwen3.5 Plus?

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

MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 Plus lists at $0.40 and $2.40.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5 Plus does, with 1M tokens against 205K.

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

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.1 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 Plus has 15.