# Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite vs MiniMax-M2.1

> Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.8 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemini-3-1-flash-lite-vs-minimax-m2-1
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 21

## Summary

- They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite scores higher in 6 categories and MiniMax-M2.1 in 3 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads 22.9 to 16.6.
- MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $1.50 for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite.
- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 205K.
- MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 40.8 | 38.9 |
| Rank | 144 | 178 |
| Context | 1.05M | 205K |
| Input $/M | $0.25 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $1.50 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 37.8 (#188)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1256 | 1384 |
| LMArena Coding | 1400 | 1421 |
| ALE-Bench | 797.73 | 623.83 |
| SciCode | 41.9% | — |
| WeirdML | 52.2% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 30.2 (#79)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 36.6% |
| DeepResearch Bench | 37.3% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 22.9 (#186)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | 8.2% | 11.2% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1407 | 1411 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 67.2% | — |
| CritPt | 1.1% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 25% | — |
| EnigmaEval | 3% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 63.3% | — |
| DTBench | 76.8% | — |
| LMCA | 35% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 144.47 | — |
| ForecastBench | 54.4 | — |

## Math

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 40.7 (#90)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1428 | 1397 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 27.7% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 80% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 41.9 (#104)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 8.2% | 11.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1398 | 1431 |
| GPQA Diamond | 81.8% | — |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 8.6% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 39.4 (#60)
- MiniMax-M2.1: —

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1240 | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 52.3 (#86)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1411 | 1378 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1461 | 1430 |
| LMArena French | 1424 | 1404 |
| LMArena German | 1429 | 1381 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1413 | 1287 |
| LMArena Korean | 1392 | 1298 |
| LMArena Russian | 1420 | 1387 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1421 | 1397 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 72.7 (#131)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1377 | 1400 |

## Long Context

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 42.5 (#122)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1394 | 1416 |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 60.9 (#94)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1416 | 1392 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1401 | 1361 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1417 | 1396 |

## FAQ

### Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite better than MiniMax-M2.1?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.8 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite 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; Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite lists at $0.25 and $1.50.

### Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite or MiniMax-M2.1 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 37.8 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 205K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and MiniMax-M2.1 share?

21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite has 38 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.1 has 22.