# MiniMax-M2 vs Phi-4

> MiniMax-M2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.4 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 costs 6.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/minimax-m2-vs-phi-4
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 15

## Summary

- They share 15 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2 scores higher in 9 categories and Phi-4 in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where MiniMax-M2 leads 37.3 to 20.8.
- Phi-4 is cheaper at $0.07 / $0.14 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.
- MiniMax-M2 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 128K.

## Snapshot

| | MiniMax-M2 | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 37.4 | 31.2 |
| Rank | 204 | 279 |
| Context | 205K | 128K |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | $0.07 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $0.14 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- MiniMax-M2: 39.3 (#159)
- Phi-4: 34.4 (#239)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1370 | 1231 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 61% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1297 | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.5% |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 30.7% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 55.4% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- MiniMax-M2: 25.1 (#109)
- Phi-4: 22.8 (#128)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 30% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 28.8% |
| BALROG | — | 11.6% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 160.6 | — |

## Reasoning

- MiniMax-M2: 19.4 (#258)
- Phi-4: 17.7 (#291)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1357 | 1220 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 57.8% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 14.8% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 1% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 47.8% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 45.2% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 130.42 |
| LiveBench | — | 41.6% |

## Math

- MiniMax-M2: 37.3 (#160)
- Phi-4: 20.8 (#285)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1352 | 1246 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 13.8% |
| LiveBench Math | — | 42% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 64.9% |

## Knowledge

- MiniMax-M2: 37.0 (#163)
- Phi-4: 32.6 (#209)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1337 | 1203 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 56.1% |
| Confabulations | — | 29.4% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 3.7% |
| MMLU | — | 84.8% |

## Multilingual

- MiniMax-M2: 45.3 (#171)
- Phi-4: 37.2 (#237)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1313 | 1197 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1366 | 1212 |
| LMArena French | 1335 | 1224 |
| LMArena German | 1355 | 1222 |
| LMArena Russian | 1331 | 1209 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1326 | 1234 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1158 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1151 |

## Instruction Following

- MiniMax-M2: 70.2 (#166)
- Phi-4: 60.4 (#251)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1328 | 1201 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 58.4% |

## Long Context

- MiniMax-M2: 40.5 (#153)
- Phi-4: 36.9 (#226)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1331 | 1217 |

## Writing & Preference

- MiniMax-M2: 53.0 (#162)
- Phi-4: 40.5 (#244)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1340 | 1217 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1286 | 1182 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1361 | 1206 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 62.6% |
| LiveBench Language | — | 25.6% |

## FAQ

### Is MiniMax-M2 better than Phi-4?

MiniMax-M2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.4 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 costs 6.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2 or Phi-4?

Phi-4 is cheaper. It lists at $0.07 per million input tokens and $0.14 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

### Is MiniMax-M2 or Phi-4 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.3 versus 34.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

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

### How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2 and Phi-4 share?

15 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2 has 21 scored results on Noometry and Phi-4 has 37.