# MiniMax-M2.1 vs Qwen3.5-Flash

> Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.5 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/minimax-m2-1-vs-qwen3-5-flash
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 20

## Summary

- They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3.5-Flash in 3 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3.5-Flash leads 33.7 to 16.6.
- Qwen3.5-Flash is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.1.
- Qwen3.5-Flash accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 205K.
- MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 38.9 | 42.5 |
| Rank | 178 | 112 |
| Context | 205K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | $0.10 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $0.40 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 34.2 (#242)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1384 | 1244 |
| LMArena Coding | 1421 | 1412 |
| ALE-Bench | 623.83 | 221.8 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 36.6% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 462.69 |

## Reasoning

- MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 33.7 (#72)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1411 | 1403 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 11.2% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 21% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 20% |
| DTBench | — | 82.9% |
| LMCA | — | 29.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 143.98 |

## Math

- MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 37.4 (#158)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1397 | 1407 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.2% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 84.4% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 6.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 0% |

## Knowledge

- MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 43.2 (#93)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 11.8% | 10.5% |
| LMArena Expert | 1431 | 1407 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 82.3% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 20.3% |

## Multilingual

- MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 50.5 (#121)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1378 | 1385 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1430 | 1446 |
| LMArena French | 1404 | 1412 |
| LMArena German | 1381 | 1390 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | 1368 |
| LMArena Korean | 1298 | 1344 |
| LMArena Russian | 1387 | 1379 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1397 | 1400 |

## Instruction Following

- MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 72.6 (#139)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1400 | 1374 |

## Long Context

- MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 42.4 (#124)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1416 | 1392 |

## Writing & Preference

- MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 57.9 (#122)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1392 | 1397 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1361 | 1343 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1396 | 1393 |

## FAQ

### Is MiniMax-M2.1 better than Qwen3.5-Flash?

Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.5 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.1 or Qwen3.5-Flash?

Qwen3.5-Flash is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2.1 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

### Is MiniMax-M2.1 or Qwen3.5-Flash better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 34.2 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5-Flash does, with 1M tokens against 205K.

### How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.1 and Qwen3.5-Flash share?

20 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.1 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-Flash has 32.