# Inkling-Small vs MiniMax-M2.5

> Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 38.1 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/inkling-small-vs-minimax-m2-5
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 23

## Summary

- They share 23 benchmarks with published results for both. Inkling-Small scores higher in 7 categories and MiniMax-M2.5 in 1 category; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Inkling-Small leads 39.0 to 17.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is ARC-AGI-2: 40.1% for Inkling-Small and 4.9% for MiniMax-M2.5.
- MiniMax-M2.5 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.45 / $1.20 for Inkling-Small.
- Inkling-Small accepts more context: 524K tokens versus 205K.

## Snapshot

| | Inkling-Small | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 46.5 | 38.1 |
| Rank | 57 | 181 |
| Context | 524K | 205K |
| Input $/M | $0.45 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Inkling-Small: 43.3 (#80)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 47.9 (#53)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1408 | 1386 |
| LMArena Coding | 1451 | 1380 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 75.8% |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | — | 68.3% |
| SciCode | 48.7% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 618.17 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Inkling-Small: —
- MiniMax-M2.5: 30.2 (#70)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 42.7% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | -23.16 |

## Reasoning

- Inkling-Small: 39.0 (#53)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 17.6 (#281)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 40.1% | 4.9% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 84% | 63.7% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1424 | 1372 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 150.13 | 146.68 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 55.2% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 16.8% |
| CritPt | 8.3% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 18% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 6% | — |

## Math

- Inkling-Small: 44.9 (#65)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 25.8 (#242)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| ProofBench | 6% | 4% |
| LMArena Math | 1453 | 1378 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 46.3% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 17.1% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 90% | — |

## Knowledge

- Inkling-Small: 48.3 (#71)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 38.6 (#132)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1442 | 1378 |
| GPQA Diamond | 88.5% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 19.1% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 9.1% |

## Multimodal

- Inkling-Small: 38.4 (#59)
- MiniMax-M2.5: —

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1235 | — |

## Multilingual

- Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#102)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 47.3 (#147)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1400 | 1338 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1458 | 1392 |
| LMArena French | 1438 | 1363 |
| LMArena German | 1412 | 1361 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1399 | 1169 |
| LMArena Korean | 1355 | 1232 |
| LMArena Russian | 1392 | 1359 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1426 | 1354 |

## Instruction Following

- Inkling-Small: 73.9 (#112)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 71.7 (#143)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1397 | 1353 |

## Long Context

- Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#113)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 37.4 (#211)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1401 | 1367 |
| CL-bench | — | 11.4% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 6.3% |

## Writing & Preference

- Inkling-Small: 59.8 (#102)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 54.1 (#149)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1413 | 1359 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1330 | 1331 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1491 | 1361 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1420 | 1364 |

## FAQ

### Is Inkling-Small better than MiniMax-M2.5?

Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 38.1 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Inkling-Small or MiniMax-M2.5?

MiniMax-M2.5 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Inkling-Small lists at $0.45 and $1.20.

### Is Inkling-Small or MiniMax-M2.5 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 47.9 versus 43.3 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Inkling-Small does, with 524K tokens against 205K.

### How many benchmarks do Inkling-Small and MiniMax-M2.5 share?

23 benchmarks have published results for both models. Inkling-Small has 33 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.5 has 33.