Model comparison

MiniMax-M2 vs Qwen3 8B

MiniMax-M2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.4 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 1.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 11, 2026. 0 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2

MiniMax

37.4

Rank #204 Confirmed

Qwen3 8B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.7

Rank #238 Confirmed

Summary

The widest gap is in coding, where MiniMax-M2 leads 39.3 to 34.0.
Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.
MiniMax-M2 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2 and Qwen3 8B specifications
	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3 8B
Provider	MiniMax	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	37.4	33.7
Released	2025-10-27	2025-04
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	205K	131K
Max output	131K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$0.18
Output $ / M tokens	$1.20	$0.70
Results tracked	21	11

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M2 leads

MiniMax-M2: 39.3 (#159), Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3 8B
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)	61%	—
LMArena WebDev	1297	—
SciCode	—	22.6%
LMArena Coding	1370	—

Agentic & Tool Use Qwen3 8B leads

MiniMax-M2: 25.1 (#109), Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3 8B
Terminal-Bench	30%	—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	—	42.6%
Vending-Bench 2	160.6	—

Reasoning MiniMax-M2 leads

MiniMax-M2: 19.4 (#258), Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3 8B
Kagi LLM Benchmark	57.8%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	14.8%	—
CritPt	—	0%
Chess Puzzles	—	5%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1357	—
DTBench	—	59.7%
LMCA	—	8.8%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	136.17

Math MiniMax-M2 leads

MiniMax-M2: 37.3 (#160), Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3 8B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	56.1%
LMArena Math	1352	—

Knowledge Too close to call

MiniMax-M2: 37.0 (#163), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3 8B
GPQA Diamond	—	56.8%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	4.8%
LMArena Expert	1337	—

Multilingual Not comparable

MiniMax-M2: 45.3 (#171), Qwen3 8B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3 8B
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 8B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Instruction Following	1328	—

Long Context MiniMax-M2 leads

MiniMax-M2: 40.5 (#153), Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3 8B
Fiction.LiveBench	—	62.1%
LMArena Longer Query	1331	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

MiniMax-M2: 53.0 (#162), Qwen3 8B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Text	1340	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1286	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1361	—

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M2 better than Qwen3 8B?

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2 or Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

Is MiniMax-M2 or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

MiniMax-M2 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.3 versus 34.0 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M2 does, with 205K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2 and Qwen3 8B share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2 has 21 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.