Model comparison
MiniMax-M2.1 vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
MiniMax-M2.1 and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (38.9 vs 38.1), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Last verified . 20 shared benchmarks.
MiniMax
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher in 8 categories and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 1 category; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads 25.5 to 16.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench: 36.6% for MiniMax-M2.1 and 27.2% for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 205K.
Side by side
| MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 38.9 | 38.1 |
| Released | 2025-12-23 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 205K | 262K |
| Max output | 131K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | $1.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.20 | $7.50 |
| Results tracked | 22 | 25 |
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Category by category
Coding MiniMax-M2.1 leads
MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 35.5 (#223)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1384 | 1275 |
| LMArena Coding | 1421 | 1412 |
| ALE-Bench | 623.83 | 461.45 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 55.4% |
| GSO | — | 4.9% |
| WeirdML | — | 41.2% |
| AlgoTune | — | 1.44 |
Agentic & Tool Use MiniMax-M2.1 leads
MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.9 (#123)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 36.6% | 27.2% |
Reasoning Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 25.5 (#149)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1411 | 1372 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 49.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 11.2% | — |
Math Too close to call
MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.6 (#150)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1397 | 1365 |
Knowledge MiniMax-M2.1 leads
MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.0 (#162)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1431 | 1338 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 11.8% | — |
Multilingual MiniMax-M2.1 leads
MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.7 (#148)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1378 | 1346 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1430 | 1357 |
| LMArena French | 1404 | 1398 |
| LMArena German | 1381 | 1325 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | 1310 |
| LMArena Korean | 1298 | 1305 |
| LMArena Russian | 1387 | 1366 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1397 | 1360 |
Instruction Following MiniMax-M2.1 leads
MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.6 (#147)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1400 | 1355 |
Long Context MiniMax-M2.1 leads
MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#131)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1416 | 1378 |
Writing & Preference MiniMax-M2.1 leads
MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.3 (#147)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1392 | 1357 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1361 | 1333 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1396 | 1365 |
Frequently asked questions
Is MiniMax-M2.1 better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?
MiniMax-M2.1 and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (38.9 vs 38.1), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.1 or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?
MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct lists at $1.50 and $7.50.
Is MiniMax-M2.1 or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?
MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 35.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct does, with 262K tokens against 205K.
How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.1 and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?
20 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.1 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.