Model comparison
MiniMax-M2.5 vs Qwen3.6 27B
Qwen3.6 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.2 to 38.3 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.5 costs 2.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 1 shared benchmarks.
MiniMax
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3.6 27B in 3 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.6 27B leads 48.5 to 26.9.
- MiniMax-M2.5 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.60 / $3.60 for Qwen3.6 27B.
- Qwen3.6 27B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 205K.
Side by side
| MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3.6 27B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 38.3 | 42.2 |
| Released | 2026-02-12 | 2026-04-22 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 205K | 262K |
| Max output | 131K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | $0.60 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.20 | $3.60 |
| Results tracked | 33 | 11 |
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Category by category
Coding MiniMax-M2.5 leads
MiniMax-M2.5: 48.1 (#58), Qwen3.6 27B: 39.1 (#163)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 75.8% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1387 | — |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 68.3% | — |
| SciCode | — | 37.3% |
| LMArena Coding | 1381 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 618.17 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
MiniMax-M2.5: 30.4 (#77), Qwen3.6 27B: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 42.7% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | -23.16 | — |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 27B leads
MiniMax-M2.5: 17.5 (#292), Qwen3.6 27B: 25.0 (#153)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.68 | 146.5 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 4.9% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 55.2% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 16.8% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 63.7% | — |
| CritPt | — | 0.9% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 22% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1372 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 7% |
| DTBench | — | 78.1% |
| LMCA | — | 34.5% |
Math Qwen3.6 27B leads
MiniMax-M2.5: 26.9 (#253), Qwen3.6 27B: 48.5 (#62)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 35.1% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 91.1% |
| ProofBench | 4% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1378 | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 27B leads
MiniMax-M2.5: 39.2 (#135), Qwen3.6 27B: 52.4 (#63)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 85.9% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 9.1% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1379 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
MiniMax-M2.5: 47.1 (#152), Qwen3.6 27B: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1338 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1393 | — |
| LMArena French | 1362 | — |
| LMArena German | 1362 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1171 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1232 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1358 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1354 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
MiniMax-M2.5: 71.5 (#148), Qwen3.6 27B: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1353 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
MiniMax-M2.5: 37.5 (#216), Qwen3.6 27B: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| CL-bench | 11.4% | — |
| CL-bench Life | 6.3% | — |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1366 | — |
Writing & Preference MiniMax-M2.5 leads
MiniMax-M2.5: 53.9 (#153), Qwen3.6 27B: 50.3 (#181)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1359 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1361 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | — | 1026 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1364 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is MiniMax-M2.5 better than Qwen3.6 27B?
Qwen3.6 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.2 to 38.3 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.5 costs 2.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.5 or Qwen3.6 27B?
MiniMax-M2.5 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 27B lists at $0.60 and $3.60.
Is MiniMax-M2.5 or Qwen3.6 27B better for coding?
MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.1 versus 39.1 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.6 27B does, with 262K tokens against 205K.
How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.5 and Qwen3.6 27B share?
1 benchmark has published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.5 has 33 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 27B has 11.