Model comparison

MiniMax-M2.5 vs Mistral Medium 3.5

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.2 to 38.3 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.5 costs 5.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Medium 3.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 11, 2026. 20 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2.5

MiniMax

38.3

Rank #188 Confirmed

Mistral Medium 3.5

Mistral AI

40.2

Rank #152 Confirmed

Summary

They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher in 2 categories and Mistral Medium 3.5 in 6 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where Mistral Medium 3.5 leads 39.1 to 26.9.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 55.2% for MiniMax-M2.5 and 41.4% for Mistral Medium 3.5.
MiniMax-M2.5 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
Mistral Medium 3.5 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 205K.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2.5 and Mistral Medium 3.5 specifications
	MiniMax-M2.5	Mistral Medium 3.5
Provider	MiniMax	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	38.3	40.2
Released	2026-02-12	—
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	205K	262K
Max output	131K	210K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$1.50
Output $ / M tokens	$1.20	$7.50
Results tracked	33	22

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M2.5 leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 48.1 (#58), Mistral Medium 3.5: 36.0 (#213)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena WebDev	1387	1264
LMArena Coding	1381	1461
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)	75.8%	—
SWE-bench Multilingual	68.3%	—
ALE-Bench	618.17	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.5: 30.4 (#77), Mistral Medium 3.5: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Mistral Medium 3.5
Terminal-Bench	42.7%	—
Vending-Bench 2	-23.16	—

Reasoning Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.5: 17.5 (#292), Mistral Medium 3.5: 17.3 (#295)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Mistral Medium 3.5
Kagi LLM Benchmark	55.2%	41.4%
NYT Connections (extended)	16.8%	12.9%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1372	1436
Epoch Capabilities Index	146.68	141.35
ARC-AGI-2	4.9%	—
ARC-AGI-1	63.7%	—

Math Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 26.9 (#253), Mistral Medium 3.5: 39.1 (#113)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Math	1378	1431
ProofBench	4%	—

Knowledge Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.5: 39.2 (#135), Mistral Medium 3.5: 40.0 (#126)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Expert	1379	1432
Vectara Hallucination Rate	9.1%	—

Multimodal Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.5: —, Mistral Medium 3.5: 38.3 (#65)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Vision	—	1223

Multilingual Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 47.1 (#152), Mistral Medium 3.5: 51.9 (#100)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Non-English	1338	1404
LMArena Chinese	1393	1442
LMArena French	1362	1448
LMArena German	1362	1451
LMArena Korean	1232	1385
LMArena Russian	1358	1395
LMArena Spanish	1354	1409
LMArena Japanese	1171	—

Instruction Following Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 71.5 (#148), Mistral Medium 3.5: 74.6 (#90)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Instruction Following	1353	1415

Long Context Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 37.5 (#216), Mistral Medium 3.5: 43.2 (#103)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Longer Query	1366	1415
CL-bench	11.4%	—
CL-bench Life	6.3%	—

Writing & Preference Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 53.9 (#153), Mistral Medium 3.5: 58.5 (#117)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Text	1359	1421
LMArena Creative Writing	1331	1374
LMArena Multi-Turn	1364	1423
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1361	—
EQ-Bench 4	—	993

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M2.5 better than Mistral Medium 3.5?

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.5 or Mistral Medium 3.5?

MiniMax-M2.5 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Mistral Medium 3.5 lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

Is MiniMax-M2.5 or Mistral Medium 3.5 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.1 versus 36.0 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Medium 3.5 does, with 262K tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.5 and Mistral Medium 3.5 share?

20 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.5 has 33 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Medium 3.5 has 22.