Model comparison

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

MiniMax-M2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 4.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 2 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2.5

MiniMax

38.1

Rank #181 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-9B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.3

Rank #235 Confirmed

Summary

They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3.5-9B in 3 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in agentic & tool use, where MiniMax-M2.5 leads 30.2 to 14.4.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench: 42.7% for MiniMax-M2.5 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-M2.5.
Qwen3.5-9B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 205K.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2.5 and Qwen3.5-9B specifications
	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.5-9B
Provider	MiniMax	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	38.1	33.3
Released	2026-02-12	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	33	10

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M2.5 leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 47.9 (#53), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.3 (#213)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.5-9B
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)	75.8%	—
LMArena WebDev	1386	—
SWE-bench Multilingual	68.3%	—
SciCode	—	27.5%
LMArena Coding	1380	—
ALE-Bench	618.17	—

Agentic & Tool Use MiniMax-M2.5 leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 30.2 (#70), Qwen3.5-9B: 14.4 (#143)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.5-9B
Terminal-Bench	42.7%	9.2%
Vending-Bench 2	-23.16	—

Reasoning Qwen3.5-9B leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 17.6 (#281), Qwen3.5-9B: 22.5 (#178)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.5-9B
Epoch Capabilities Index	146.68	139.45
ARC-AGI-2	4.9%	—
Kagi LLM Benchmark	55.2%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	16.8%	—
ARC-AGI-1	63.7%	—
CritPt	—	0.3%
Chess Puzzles	—	12%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1372	—
DTBench	—	71.2%
LMCA	—	24.5%

Math Qwen3.5-9B leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 25.8 (#242), Qwen3.5-9B: 33.5 (#174)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.5-9B
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions	—	48.5%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	61.7%
ProofBench	4%	—
LMArena Math	1378	—

Knowledge Qwen3.5-9B leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 38.6 (#132), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#77)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.5-9B
GPQA Diamond	—	79%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	9.1%	—
LMArena Expert	1378	—

Multilingual Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.5: 47.3 (#147), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Non-English	1338	—
LMArena Chinese	1392	—
LMArena French	1363	—
LMArena German	1361	—
LMArena Japanese	1169	—
LMArena Korean	1232	—
LMArena Russian	1359	—
LMArena Spanish	1354	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.5: 71.7 (#143), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Instruction Following	1353	—

Long Context Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.5: 37.4 (#211), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.5-9B
CL-bench	11.4%	—
CL-bench Life	6.3%	—
LMArena Longer Query	1367	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.5: 54.1 (#149), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Text	1359	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1331	—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1361	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1364	—

Frequently asked questions

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

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.5 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-M2.5 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

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

MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 47.9 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-M2.5 and Qwen3.5-9B share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.5 has 33 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.