Model comparison
MiniMax-M2.1 vs Sonar
MiniMax-M2.1 and Sonar score almost the same on the Noometry Index (38.9 vs 38.5), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.
MiniMax
PerplexitySummary
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where MiniMax-M2.1 leads 58.3 to 52.6.
- MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $1 for Sonar.
- MiniMax-M2.1 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 128K.
- MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Perplexity |
| Noometry Index | 38.9 | 38.5 |
| Released | 2025-12-23 | 2024-01-01 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 205K | 128K |
| Max output | 131K | 4K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | $1 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.20 | $1 |
| Results tracked | 22 | 7 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding MiniMax-M2.1 leads
MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143), Sonar: 35.7 (#221)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1384 | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 35.1% |
| LMArena Coding | 1421 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 623.83 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 36.6% | — |
Reasoning Sonar leads
MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302), Sonar: 21.1 (#227)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | 11.2% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 46.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1411 | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 37.9% |
| LiveBench | — | 46.9% |
Math MiniMax-M2.1 leads
MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138), Sonar: 33.7 (#200)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Math | — | 41.6% |
| LMArena Math | 1397 | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 11.8% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1431 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| 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 MiniMax-M2.1 leads
MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112), Sonar: 71.4 (#150)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 76.2% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1400 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1416 | — |
Writing & Preference MiniMax-M2.1 leads
MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120), Sonar: 52.6 (#167)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1392 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1361 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1396 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 44.1% |
Frequently asked questions
Is MiniMax-M2.1 better than Sonar?
MiniMax-M2.1 and Sonar score almost the same on the Noometry Index (38.9 vs 38.5), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.1 or Sonar?
MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Sonar lists at $1 and $1.
Is MiniMax-M2.1 or Sonar better for coding?
MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 35.7 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
MiniMax-M2.1 does, with 205K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.1 and Sonar share?
0 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.1 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.