Model comparison

MiniMax-M2 vs Qwen3.5-9B

MiniMax-M2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.4 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 4.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 1 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2

MiniMax

37.4

Rank #204 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-9B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.8

Rank #236 Confirmed

Summary

They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. MiniMax-M2 scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen3.5-9B in 2 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in agentic & tool use, where MiniMax-M2 leads 25.1 to 14.5.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench: 30% for MiniMax-M2 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.
Qwen3.5-9B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 205K.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2 and Qwen3.5-9B specifications
	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3.5-9B
Provider	MiniMax	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	37.4	33.8
Released	2025-10-27	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	21	10

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M2 leads

MiniMax-M2: 39.3 (#159), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.9 (#217)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3.5-9B
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)	61%	—
LMArena WebDev	1297	—
SciCode	—	27.5%
LMArena Coding	1370	—

Agentic & Tool Use MiniMax-M2 leads

MiniMax-M2: 25.1 (#109), Qwen3.5-9B: 14.5 (#151)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3.5-9B
Terminal-Bench	30%	9.2%
Vending-Bench 2	160.6	—

Reasoning Qwen3.5-9B leads

MiniMax-M2: 19.4 (#258), Qwen3.5-9B: 23.1 (#182)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3.5-9B
Kagi LLM Benchmark	57.8%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	14.8%	—
CritPt	—	0.3%
Chess Puzzles	—	12%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1357	—
DTBench	—	71.2%
LMCA	—	24.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	139.46

Math MiniMax-M2 leads

MiniMax-M2: 37.3 (#160), Qwen3.5-9B: 34.8 (#192)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3.5-9B
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions	—	48.5%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	61.7%
LMArena Math	1352	—

Knowledge Qwen3.5-9B leads

MiniMax-M2: 37.0 (#163), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#84)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3.5-9B
GPQA Diamond	—	79%
LMArena Expert	1337	—

Multilingual Not comparable

MiniMax-M2: 45.3 (#171), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Non-English	1313	—
LMArena Chinese	1366	—
LMArena French	1335	—
LMArena German	1355	—
LMArena Russian	1331	—
LMArena Spanish	1326	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

MiniMax-M2: 70.2 (#166), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Instruction Following	1328	—

Long Context Not comparable

MiniMax-M2: 40.5 (#153), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Longer Query	1331	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

MiniMax-M2: 53.0 (#162), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Text	1340	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1286	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1361	—

Frequently asked questions

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

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

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

MiniMax-M2 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.3 versus 35.9 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 and Qwen3.5-9B share?

1 benchmark has published results for both models. MiniMax-M2 has 21 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.