Model comparison
MiniMax M1 vs Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 40.3 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.
MiniMax
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax M1 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Plus in 8 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 Plus leads 56.1 to 36.4.
- MiniMax M1 is cheaper at $0.55 / $2.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $3 for Qwen3.6 Plus.
- MiniMax M1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 40.3 | 47.5 |
| Released | 2025-06-13 | 2026-03-31 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Max output | 40K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.55 | $0.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2.20 | $3 |
| Results tracked | 18 | 37 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
MiniMax M1: 39.9 (#153), Qwen3.6 Plus: 40.8 (#130)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1359 | 1467 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 57.9% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1461 |
| SciCode | — | 40.7% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 670.15 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
MiniMax M1: —, Qwen3.6 Plus: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 5,115 |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Plus leads
MiniMax M1: 26.9 (#126), Qwen3.6 Plus: 29.3 (#93)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1339 | 1449 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 60.3% |
| CritPt | — | 2.9% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 17% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 59.5% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 12% |
| DTBench | — | 81.9% |
| LMCA | — | 33.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 147.65 |
Math Qwen3.6 Plus leads
MiniMax M1: 37.5 (#151), Qwen3.6 Plus: 51.8 (#54)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1361 | 1450 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 38.2% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 93.3% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 26.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 8.3% |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Plus leads
MiniMax M1: 36.4 (#170), Qwen3.6 Plus: 56.1 (#45)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1317 | 1454 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 88.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 44.1% |
Multilingual Qwen3.6 Plus leads
MiniMax M1: 45.8 (#163), Qwen3.6 Plus: 53.3 (#70)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1319 | 1424 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1360 | 1477 |
| LMArena French | 1370 | 1455 |
| LMArena German | 1350 | 1452 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1217 | 1389 |
| LMArena Korean | 1266 | 1379 |
| LMArena Russian | 1329 | 1434 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1353 | 1432 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Plus leads
MiniMax M1: 69.3 (#174), Qwen3.6 Plus: 75.0 (#74)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1312 | 1425 |
Long Context Qwen3.6 Plus leads
MiniMax M1: 41.4 (#141), Qwen3.6 Plus: 45.2 (#49)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1326 | 1439 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 69.4% | — |
| CL-bench | — | 20.3% |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Plus leads
MiniMax M1: 53.1 (#161), Qwen3.6 Plus: 62.2 (#82)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1343 | 1437 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1298 | 1404 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1335 | 1438 |
Frequently asked questions
Is MiniMax M1 better than Qwen3.6 Plus?
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 40.3 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax M1 or Qwen3.6 Plus?
MiniMax M1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.55 per million input tokens and $2.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Plus lists at $0.50 and $3.
Is MiniMax M1 or Qwen3.6 Plus better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (39.9 vs 40.8); test both on your own repository before choosing.
Which has the bigger context window?
Both accept 1M tokens.
How many benchmarks do MiniMax M1 and Qwen3.6 Plus share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax M1 has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Plus has 37.