# Amazon Nova Micro vs MiniMax-M2.1

> MiniMax-M2.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.9 to 30.4 on the Noometry Index. Amazon Nova Micro costs 8.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/amazon-nova-micro-vs-minimax-m2-1
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 18

## Summary

- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Amazon Nova Micro scores higher in 1 category and MiniMax-M2.1 in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where MiniMax-M2.1 leads 58.3 to 39.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Vectara Hallucination Rate: 5.5% for Amazon Nova Micro and 11.8% for MiniMax-M2.1.
- Amazon Nova Micro is cheaper at $0.035 / $0.14 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.1.
- MiniMax-M2.1 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 128K.
- MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Amazon Nova Micro | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 30.4 | 38.9 |
| Rank | 294 | 178 |
| Context | 128K | 205K |
| Input $/M | $0.035 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $0.14 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Amazon Nova Micro: 30.5 (#295)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Micro | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1218 | 1421 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1384 |
| LiveBench Coding | 20.2% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 623.83 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Amazon Nova Micro: 22.1 (#132)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Micro | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 36.6% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 22.3% | — |

## Reasoning

- Amazon Nova Micro: 17.4 (#294)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Micro | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1191 | 1411 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 11.2% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 25.1% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 34% | — |
| LiveBench | 29.6% | — |

## Math

- Amazon Nova Micro: 26.9 (#254)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Micro | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1206 | 1397 |
| Omni-MATH | 21.4% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 34.5% | — |

## Knowledge

- Amazon Nova Micro: 29.6 (#237)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Micro | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.5% | 11.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1184 | 1431 |
| MMLU-Pro | 51.1% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 38.3% | — |
| MMLU | 70.8% | — |

## Multilingual

- Amazon Nova Micro: 36.5 (#239)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Micro | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1186 | 1378 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1209 | 1430 |
| LMArena French | 1238 | 1404 |
| LMArena German | 1192 | 1381 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1154 | 1287 |
| LMArena Korean | 1150 | 1298 |
| LMArena Russian | 1185 | 1387 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1225 | 1397 |

## Instruction Following

- Amazon Nova Micro: 56.3 (#272)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Micro | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1174 | 1400 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 48% | — |
| IFEval | 76% | — |

## Long Context

- Amazon Nova Micro: 36.5 (#229)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Micro | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1205 | 1416 |

## Writing & Preference

- Amazon Nova Micro: 39.5 (#247)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Micro | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1208 | 1392 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1172 | 1361 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1178 | 1396 |
| WildBench | 74.3% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 15.8% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Amazon Nova Micro better than MiniMax-M2.1?

MiniMax-M2.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.9 to 30.4 on the Noometry Index. Amazon Nova Micro costs 8.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Amazon Nova Micro or MiniMax-M2.1?

Amazon Nova Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.035 per million input tokens and $0.14 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2.1 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

### Is Amazon Nova Micro or MiniMax-M2.1 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 30.5 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M2.1 does, with 205K tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do Amazon Nova Micro and MiniMax-M2.1 share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Amazon Nova Micro has 32 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.1 has 22.