# MiniMax-M2.1 vs Sonar

> MiniMax-M2.1 and Sonar score almost the same on the Noometry Index (38.4 vs 37.8), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/minimax-m2-1-vs-sonar
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where MiniMax-M2.1 leads 58.5 to 52.6.
- MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $1 for Sonar.
- MiniMax-M2.1 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 128K.
- MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Perplexity |
| Noometry Index | 38.4 | 37.8 |
| Rank | 177 | 184 |
| Context | 205K | 128K |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | $1 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $1 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- MiniMax-M2.1: 40.1 (#132)
- Sonar: 35.1 (#217)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1384 | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 35.1% |
| LMArena Coding | 1421 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 623.83 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- MiniMax-M2.1: 27.7 (#91)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 36.6% | — |

## Reasoning

- MiniMax-M2.1: 15.8 (#301)
- Sonar: 20.3 (#221)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | 11.2% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 46.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1410 | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 37.9% |
| LiveBench | — | 46.9% |

## Math

- MiniMax-M2.1: 35.6 (#142)
- Sonar: 31.3 (#197)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Math | — | 41.6% |
| LMArena Math | 1396 | — |

## Knowledge

- MiniMax-M2.1: 37.7 (#143)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 11.8% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1432 | — |

## Multilingual

- MiniMax-M2.1: 50.2 (#123)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1378 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1430 | — |
| LMArena French | 1405 | — |
| LMArena German | 1380 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1297 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1386 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1396 | — |

## Instruction Following

- MiniMax-M2.1: 74.0 (#108)
- Sonar: 71.5 (#146)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 76.2% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1399 | — |

## Long Context

- MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#98)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1416 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- MiniMax-M2.1: 58.5 (#114)
- Sonar: 52.6 (#166)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1392 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1362 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1396 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 44.1% |

## FAQ

### Is MiniMax-M2.1 better than Sonar?

MiniMax-M2.1 and Sonar score almost the same on the Noometry Index (38.4 vs 37.8), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.1 or Sonar?

MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Sonar lists at $1 and $1.

### Is MiniMax-M2.1 or Sonar better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.1 versus 35.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M2.1 does, with 205K tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.1 and Sonar share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.1 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.