# MiniMax-M2.1 vs Molmo 2 8b

> MiniMax-M2.1 and Molmo 2 8b score almost the same on the Noometry Index (38.9 vs 39.1), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/minimax-m2-1-vs-molmo-2-8b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 4

## Summary

- They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher in 3 categories and Molmo 2 8b in 1 category; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Molmo 2 8b leads 25.6 to 16.6.

## Snapshot

| | MiniMax-M2.1 | Molmo 2 8b |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) |
| Noometry Index | 38.9 | 39.1 |
| Rank | 178 | 174 |
| Context | 205K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | — |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143)
- Molmo 2 8b: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Molmo 2 8b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1384 | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1421 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 623.83 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98)
- Molmo 2 8b: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Molmo 2 8b |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 36.6% | — |

## Reasoning

- MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302)
- Molmo 2 8b: 25.6 (#146)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Molmo 2 8b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1411 | 1287 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 11.2% | — |

## Math

- MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138)
- Molmo 2 8b: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Molmo 2 8b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1397 | — |

## Knowledge

- MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147)
- Molmo 2 8b: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Molmo 2 8b |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 11.8% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1431 | — |

## Multimodal

- MiniMax-M2.1: —
- Molmo 2 8b: 30.2 (#112)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Molmo 2 8b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1081 |

## Multilingual

- MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128)
- Molmo 2 8b: 42.7 (#190)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Molmo 2 8b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1378 | 1276 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1430 | — |
| LMArena French | 1404 | — |
| LMArena German | 1381 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1298 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1387 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1397 | — |

## Instruction Following

- MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112)
- Molmo 2 8b: 67.0 (#201)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Molmo 2 8b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1400 | 1270 |

## Long Context

- MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101)
- Molmo 2 8b: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Molmo 2 8b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1416 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120)
- Molmo 2 8b: 49.4 (#191)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Molmo 2 8b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1392 | 1288 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1361 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1396 | — |

## FAQ

### Is MiniMax-M2.1 better than Molmo 2 8b?

MiniMax-M2.1 and Molmo 2 8b score almost the same on the Noometry Index (38.9 vs 39.1), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.1 and Molmo 2 8b share?

4 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.1 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Molmo 2 8b has 5.