# MiniMax-M2.5 vs Mistral Medium 3.5

> Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.6 to 38.1 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.5 costs 5.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Medium 3.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/minimax-m2-5-vs-mistral-medium-3-5
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 20

## Summary

- They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher in 2 categories and Mistral Medium 3.5 in 6 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where MiniMax-M2.5 leads 47.9 to 35.7.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 55.2% for MiniMax-M2.5 and 41.4% for Mistral Medium 3.5.
- MiniMax-M2.5 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
- Mistral Medium 3.5 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 205K.

## Snapshot

| | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 38.1 | 39.6 |
| Rank | 181 | 151 |
| Context | 205K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | $1.50 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $7.50 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- MiniMax-M2.5: 47.9 (#53)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 35.7 (#208)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1386 | 1263 |
| LMArena Coding | 1380 | 1461 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 75.8% | — |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 68.3% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 618.17 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- MiniMax-M2.5: 30.2 (#70)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 42.7% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | -23.16 | — |

## Reasoning

- MiniMax-M2.5: 17.6 (#281)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 16.6 (#290)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 55.2% | 41.4% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 16.8% | 12.9% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1372 | 1436 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.68 | 141.42 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 4.9% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 63.7% | — |

## Math

- MiniMax-M2.5: 25.8 (#242)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 36.4 (#113)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1378 | 1432 |
| ProofBench | 4% | — |

## Knowledge

- MiniMax-M2.5: 38.6 (#132)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 39.3 (#123)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1378 | 1431 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 9.1% | — |

## Multimodal

- MiniMax-M2.5: —
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 37.6 (#64)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1222 |

## Multilingual

- MiniMax-M2.5: 47.3 (#147)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 52.1 (#93)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1338 | 1405 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1392 | 1443 |
| LMArena French | 1363 | 1448 |
| LMArena German | 1361 | 1453 |
| LMArena Korean | 1232 | 1387 |
| LMArena Russian | 1359 | 1396 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1354 | 1406 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1169 | — |

## Instruction Following

- MiniMax-M2.5: 71.7 (#143)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 74.7 (#87)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1353 | 1414 |

## Long Context

- MiniMax-M2.5: 37.4 (#211)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 43.2 (#101)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1367 | 1414 |
| CL-bench | 11.4% | — |
| CL-bench Life | 6.3% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- MiniMax-M2.5: 54.1 (#149)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 58.6 (#113)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1359 | 1421 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1372 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1364 | 1423 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1361 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | — | 993 |

## FAQ

### Is MiniMax-M2.5 better than Mistral Medium 3.5?

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.6 to 38.1 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.5 costs 5.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Medium 3.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.5 or Mistral Medium 3.5?

MiniMax-M2.5 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Mistral Medium 3.5 lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

### Is MiniMax-M2.5 or Mistral Medium 3.5 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 47.9 versus 35.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Medium 3.5 does, with 262K tokens against 205K.

### How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.5 and Mistral Medium 3.5 share?

20 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.5 has 33 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Medium 3.5 has 22.