# DeepSeek-R1 vs MiniMax-M2.1

> DeepSeek-R1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.0 to 38.4 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 1.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when DeepSeek-R1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/deepseek-r1-vs-minimax-m2-1
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 19

## Summary

- They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-R1 scores higher in 8 categories and MiniMax-M2.1 in 1 category; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where DeepSeek-R1 leads 44.3 to 37.7.
- MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $2.15 for DeepSeek-R1.
- MiniMax-M2.1 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 164K.
- MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | DeepSeek-R1 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | DeepSeek | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 42.0 | 38.4 |
| Rank | 110 | 177 |
| Context | 164K | 205K |
| Input $/M | $0.50 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $2.15 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- DeepSeek-R1: 45.9 (#63)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 40.1 (#132)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1427 | 1421 |
| ALE-Bench | 804.12 | 623.83 |
| Aider Polyglot | 71.4% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1384 |
| SciCode | 35.7% | — |
| WeirdML | 41.6% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 66.7% | — |
| AlgoTune | 1.7 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- DeepSeek-R1: 30.4 (#68)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 27.7 (#91)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 36.6% |
| DeepResearch Bench | 35.1% | — |
| BALROG | 34.9% | — |
| METR Time Horizons | 53.8% | — |

## Reasoning

- DeepSeek-R1: 18.7 (#253)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 15.8 (#301)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1415 | 1410 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 1.3% | — |
| SimpleBench | 40.8% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 69.4% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 11.2% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 21.2% | — |
| CritPt | 1.1% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 83.2% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 69.8% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 141.3 | — |
| ForecastBench | 60 | — |
| LiveBench | 71.6% | — |

## Math

- DeepSeek-R1: 42.0 (#70)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 35.6 (#142)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1401 | 1396 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 66.4% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 42.4% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 80.7% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 96.6% | — |

## Knowledge

- DeepSeek-R1: 44.3 (#81)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 37.7 (#143)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 11.3% | 11.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1394 | 1432 |
| GPQA Diamond | 76.3% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 79.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 12.7% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 66.6% | — |

## Multilingual

- DeepSeek-R1: 52.6 (#80)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 50.2 (#123)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1412 | 1378 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1443 | 1430 |
| LMArena French | 1415 | 1405 |
| LMArena German | 1405 | 1380 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1394 | 1287 |
| LMArena Korean | 1359 | 1297 |
| LMArena Russian | 1423 | 1386 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1410 | 1396 |

## Instruction Following

- DeepSeek-R1: 72.2 (#138)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 74.0 (#108)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1382 | 1399 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 80.5% | — |
| IFEval | 78.4% | — |

## Long Context

- DeepSeek-R1: 45.4 (#36)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#98)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1391 | 1416 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 75% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- DeepSeek-R1: 61.5 (#84)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 58.5 (#114)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1428 | 1392 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1406 | 1362 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1404 | 1396 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 83% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1500 | — |
| WildBench | 82.8% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 48.5% | — |

## FAQ

### Is DeepSeek-R1 better than MiniMax-M2.1?

DeepSeek-R1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.0 to 38.4 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 1.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when DeepSeek-R1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-R1 or MiniMax-M2.1?

MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; DeepSeek-R1 lists at $0.50 and $2.15.

### Is DeepSeek-R1 or MiniMax-M2.1 better for coding?

DeepSeek-R1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 45.9 versus 40.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M2.1 does, with 205K tokens against 164K.

### How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-R1 and MiniMax-M2.1 share?

19 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-R1 has 52 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.1 has 22.