Model comparison

Granite 4.0 Micro vs MiniMax-M2.1

MiniMax-M2.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.9 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 13× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 12, 2026. 0 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.0 Micro IBM

29.0

Rank #318 Confirmed

MiniMax-M2.1

MiniMax

38.9

Rank #178 Confirmed

Summary

The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M2.1 leads 38.3 to 9.9.
Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.1.
MiniMax-M2.1 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Granite 4.0 Micro and MiniMax-M2.1 specifications
	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
Provider	IBM	MiniMax
Noometry Index	29.0	38.9
Released	2025-10-02	2025-12-23
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	205K
Max output	118K	131K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.017	$0.30
Output $ / M tokens	$0.11	$1.20
Results tracked	8	22

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Granite 4.0 Micro: —, MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena WebDev	—	1384
LMArena Coding	—	1421
ALE-Bench	—	623.83

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 4.0 Micro: —, MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
Terminal-Bench	—	36.6%

Reasoning Granite 4.0 Micro leads

Granite 4.0 Micro: 19.2 (#265), MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
NYT Connections (extended)	—	11.2%
Chess Puzzles	0%	—
LMArena Hard Prompts	—	1411

Math MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Granite 4.0 Micro: 12.0 (#307), MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	2.8%	—
Omni-MATH	20.9%	—
LMArena Math	—	1397

Knowledge MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#304), MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
GPQA Diamond	28.3%	—
MMLU-Pro	39.5%	—
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	11.8%
GPQA (HELM)	30.7%	—
LMArena Expert	—	1431

Multilingual Not comparable

Granite 4.0 Micro: —, MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Non-English	—	1378
LMArena Chinese	—	1430
LMArena French	—	1404
LMArena German	—	1381
LMArena Japanese	—	1287
LMArena Korean	—	1298
LMArena Russian	—	1387
LMArena Spanish	—	1397

Instruction Following MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Granite 4.0 Micro: 69.9 (#169), MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
IFEval	84.9%	—
LMArena Instruction Following	—	1400

Long Context Not comparable

Granite 4.0 Micro: —, MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Longer Query	—	1416

Writing & Preference MiniMax-M2.1 leads

Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#216), MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Text	—	1392
LMArena Creative Writing	—	1361
WildBench	67%	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	—	1396

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than MiniMax-M2.1?

Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or MiniMax-M2.1?

Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2.1 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M2.1 does, with 205K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and MiniMax-M2.1 share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.1 has 22.