# Gemini 3.5 Flash vs MiniMax-M3

> Gemini 3.5 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.2 to 43.8 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M3 costs 6.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.5 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemini-3-5-flash-vs-minimax-m3
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 39

## Summary

- They share 39 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.5 Flash scores higher in 10 categories and MiniMax-M3 in 0 categories; 10 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3.5 Flash leads 62.8 to 30.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Chess Puzzles: 50% for Gemini 3.5 Flash and 14% for MiniMax-M3.
- MiniMax-M3 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $9 for Gemini 3.5 Flash.
- Gemini 3.5 Flash accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 1M.
- MiniMax-M3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Gemini 3.5 Flash | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 54.2 | 43.8 |
| Rank | 32 | 85 |
| Context | 1.05M | 1M |
| Input $/M | $1.50 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $9 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 49.4 (#49)
- MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1499 | 1482 |
| SciCode | 53.1% | 47.1% |
| LMArena Coding | 1492 | 1469 |
| ALE-Bench | 911.02 | 640.02 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 79.3% | — |
| DeepSWE | 37.4% | — |
| FrontierCode | — | 14.7% |
| WeirdML | 62.6% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 24.7 (#114)
- MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 27.5% | 37.7% |
| GBAEval | 6.7% | 0.9% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 5,396 | 2,158 |
| OSWorld 2.0 | — | 4.6% |
| GDP.pdf | 14% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 62.8 (#18)
- MiniMax-M3: 30.1 (#87)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| SimpleBench | 76.7% | 45.8% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 92.6% | 65.1% |
| CritPt | 13.1% | 3.7% |
| Chess Puzzles | 50% | 14% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1488 | 1447 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 32% | 8% |
| DTBench | 94.7% | 78.9% |
| LMCA | 47.1% | 33.7% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 58.1% | 55% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 154.46 | 146.95 |
| ForecastBench | 59 | 61.4 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 72.1% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 92.5% | — |
| EnigmaEval | 25.4% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 4.8% | — |

## Math

- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 60.7 (#36)
- MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 95.6% | 71.1% |
| ProofBench | 31% | 18% |
| LMArena Math | 1504 | 1429 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 62.8% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 26.8% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 76.3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 39% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 14.6% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 66.3 (#11)
- MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 92.8% | 90.9% |
| LMArena Expert | 1495 | 1461 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 66.2% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 45.7 (#15)
- MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1310 | 1253 |
| LMArena Document | 1463 | 1435 |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 33.6% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 57.0 (#13)
- MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1476 | 1420 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1526 | 1463 |
| LMArena French | 1490 | 1447 |
| LMArena German | 1492 | 1426 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1486 | 1381 |
| LMArena Korean | 1451 | 1372 |
| LMArena Russian | 1493 | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1480 | 1432 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 77.0 (#30)
- MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1467 | 1433 |

## Long Context

- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 45.4 (#38)
- MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1482 | 1445 |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 65.5 (#47)
- MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1482 | 1433 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1470 | 1404 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1087 | 1150 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1481 | 1442 |

## FAQ

### Is Gemini 3.5 Flash better than MiniMax-M3?

Gemini 3.5 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.2 to 43.8 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M3 costs 6.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.5 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.5 Flash or MiniMax-M3?

MiniMax-M3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.5 Flash lists at $1.50 and $9.

### Is Gemini 3.5 Flash or MiniMax-M3 better for coding?

Gemini 3.5 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 49.4 versus 41.8 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.5 Flash does, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.

### How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.5 Flash and MiniMax-M3 share?

39 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.5 Flash has 54 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M3 has 41.