# MiniMax-M2 vs Mistral Medium 3.5

> Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.2 to 37.4 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2 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-vs-mistral-medium-3-5
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 18

## Summary

- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2 scores higher in 2 categories and Mistral Medium 3.5 in 6 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in multilingual, where Mistral Medium 3.5 leads 51.9 to 45.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 57.8% for MiniMax-M2 and 41.4% for Mistral Medium 3.5.
- MiniMax-M2 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 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 37.4 | 40.2 |
| Rank | 204 | 152 |
| Context | 205K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | $1.50 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $7.50 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- MiniMax-M2: 39.3 (#159)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 36.0 (#213)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1297 | 1264 |
| LMArena Coding | 1370 | 1461 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 61% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- MiniMax-M2: 25.1 (#109)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 30% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 160.6 | — |

## Reasoning

- MiniMax-M2: 19.4 (#258)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 17.3 (#295)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 57.8% | 41.4% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 14.8% | 12.9% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1357 | 1436 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 141.35 |

## Math

- MiniMax-M2: 37.3 (#160)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 39.1 (#113)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1352 | 1431 |

## Knowledge

- MiniMax-M2: 37.0 (#163)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 40.0 (#126)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1337 | 1432 |

## Multimodal

- MiniMax-M2: —
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 38.3 (#65)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1223 |

## Multilingual

- MiniMax-M2: 45.3 (#171)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 51.9 (#100)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1313 | 1404 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1366 | 1442 |
| LMArena French | 1335 | 1448 |
| LMArena German | 1355 | 1451 |
| LMArena Russian | 1331 | 1395 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1326 | 1409 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1385 |

## Instruction Following

- MiniMax-M2: 70.2 (#166)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 74.6 (#90)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1328 | 1415 |

## Long Context

- MiniMax-M2: 40.5 (#153)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 43.2 (#103)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1331 | 1415 |

## Writing & Preference

- MiniMax-M2: 53.0 (#162)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 58.5 (#117)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1340 | 1421 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1286 | 1374 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1361 | 1423 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | — | 993 |

## FAQ

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

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.2 to 37.4 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2 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 or Mistral Medium 3.5?

MiniMax-M2 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 or Mistral Medium 3.5 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.3 versus 36.0 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 and Mistral Medium 3.5 share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2 has 21 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Medium 3.5 has 22.