# MiniMax-M2.5 vs Qwen3 8B

> MiniMax-M2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.3 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 1.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/minimax-m2-5-vs-qwen3-8b
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 2

## Summary

- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen3 8B in 2 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where MiniMax-M2.5 leads 48.1 to 34.0.
- Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.5.
- MiniMax-M2.5 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 131K.

## Snapshot

| | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 38.3 | 33.7 |
| Rank | 188 | 238 |
| Context | 205K | 131K |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | $0.18 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $0.70 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- MiniMax-M2.5: 48.1 (#58)
- Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 75.8% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1387 | — |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 68.3% | — |
| SciCode | — | 22.6% |
| LMArena Coding | 1381 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 618.17 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- MiniMax-M2.5: 30.4 (#77)
- Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 42.7% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 42.6% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | -23.16 | — |

## Reasoning

- MiniMax-M2.5: 17.5 (#292)
- Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.68 | 136.17 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 4.9% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 55.2% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 16.8% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 63.7% | — |
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1372 | — |
| DTBench | — | 59.7% |
| LMCA | — | 8.8% |

## Math

- MiniMax-M2.5: 26.9 (#253)
- Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 56.1% |
| ProofBench | 4% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1378 | — |

## Knowledge

- MiniMax-M2.5: 39.2 (#135)
- Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 9.1% | 4.8% |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 56.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1379 | — |

## Multilingual

- MiniMax-M2.5: 47.1 (#152)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1338 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1393 | — |
| LMArena French | 1362 | — |
| LMArena German | 1362 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1171 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1232 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1358 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1354 | — |

## Instruction Following

- MiniMax-M2.5: 71.5 (#148)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1353 | — |

## Long Context

- MiniMax-M2.5: 37.5 (#216)
- Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 62.1% |
| CL-bench | 11.4% | — |
| CL-bench Life | 6.3% | — |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1366 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- MiniMax-M2.5: 53.9 (#153)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1359 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1361 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1364 | — |

## FAQ

### Is MiniMax-M2.5 better than Qwen3 8B?

MiniMax-M2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.3 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 1.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.5 or Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2.5 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

### Is MiniMax-M2.5 or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.1 versus 34.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M2.5 does, with 205K tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.5 and Qwen3 8B share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.5 has 33 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.