# Claude 2.1 vs MiniMax-M3

> MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 24.9 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/claude-2-1-vs-minimax-m3
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 5

## Summary

- They share 5 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude 2.1 scores higher in 0 categories and MiniMax-M3 in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 15.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 1.9% for Claude 2.1 and 71.1% for MiniMax-M3.
- MiniMax-M3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Claude 2.1 | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 24.9 | 43.5 |
| Rank | 340 | 81 |
| Context | — | 1M |
| Input $/M | — | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | — | $1.20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Claude 2.1: 25.8 (#322)
- MiniMax-M3: 41.5 (#111)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierCode | — | 14.7% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1482 |
| SciCode | — | 47.1% |
| WeirdML | 7.1% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1470 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 640.02 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Claude 2.1: —
- MiniMax-M3: 22.5 (#121)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 37.7% |
| OSWorld 2.0 | — | 4.6% |
| GBAEval | — | 0.9% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 2,158 |

## Reasoning

- Claude 2.1: 20.6 (#216)
- MiniMax-M3: 29.3 (#83)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| DTBench | 51% | 78.9% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 119.22 | 147 |
| ForecastBench | 54.2 | 61.4 |
| SimpleBench | — | 45.8% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 65.1% |
| CritPt | — | 3.7% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 14% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1447 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 8% |
| LMCA | — | 33.7% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 55% |

## Math

- Claude 2.1: 9.6 (#309)
- MiniMax-M3: 39.1 (#83)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 1.9% | 71.1% |
| ProofBench | — | 18% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1432 |

## Knowledge

- Claude 2.1: 15.5 (#287)
- MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#32)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 33% | 90.9% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1462 |
| MMLU | 73.5% | — |

## Multimodal

- Claude 2.1: —
- MiniMax-M3: 39.5 (#45)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1254 |
| LMArena Document | — | 1435 |

## Multilingual

- Claude 2.1: —
- MiniMax-M3: 53.2 (#70)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1420 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1465 |
| LMArena French | — | 1445 |
| LMArena German | — | 1424 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1381 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1372 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1430 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1431 |

## Instruction Following

- Claude 2.1: —
- MiniMax-M3: 75.7 (#56)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1433 |

## Long Context

- Claude 2.1: —
- MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#68)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1445 |

## Writing & Preference

- Claude 2.1: —
- MiniMax-M3: 62.3 (#79)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1433 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1405 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | — | 1150 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1441 |

## FAQ

### Is Claude 2.1 better than MiniMax-M3?

MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 24.9 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Claude 2.1 or MiniMax-M3 better for coding?

MiniMax-M3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.5 versus 25.8 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Claude 2.1 and MiniMax-M3 share?

5 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude 2.1 has 7 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M3 has 41.