Model comparison

MiniMax-M2 vs Mistral Medium 3.5

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.6 to 36.9 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.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 18 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2

MiniMax

36.9

Rank #201 Confirmed

Mistral Medium 3.5

Mistral AI

39.6

Rank #151 Confirmed

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 52.1 to 45.6.
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.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2 and Mistral Medium 3.5 specifications
	MiniMax-M2	Mistral Medium 3.5
Provider	MiniMax	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	36.9	39.6
Released	2025-10-27	—
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	205K	262K
Max output	131K	210K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$1.50
Output $ / M tokens	$1.20	$7.50
Results tracked	21	22

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M2 leads

MiniMax-M2: 39.1 (#151), Mistral Medium 3.5: 35.7 (#208)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena WebDev	1297	1263
LMArena Coding	1370	1461
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)	61%	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax-M2: 24.9 (#102), Mistral Medium 3.5: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Mistral Medium 3.5
Terminal-Bench	30%	—
Vending-Bench 2	160.6	—

Reasoning MiniMax-M2 leads

MiniMax-M2: 18.6 (#256), Mistral Medium 3.5: 16.6 (#290)

Reasoning benchmarks
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	—	141.42

Math Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

MiniMax-M2: 34.6 (#158), Mistral Medium 3.5: 36.4 (#113)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Math	1350	1432

Knowledge Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

MiniMax-M2: 36.3 (#160), Mistral Medium 3.5: 39.3 (#123)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Expert	1336	1431

Multimodal Not comparable

MiniMax-M2: —, Mistral Medium 3.5: 37.6 (#64)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Vision	—	1222

Multilingual Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

MiniMax-M2: 45.6 (#165), Mistral Medium 3.5: 52.1 (#93)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Non-English	1314	1405
LMArena Chinese	1367	1443
LMArena French	1336	1448
LMArena German	1366	1453
LMArena Russian	1332	1396
LMArena Spanish	1326	1406
LMArena Korean	—	1387

Instruction Following Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

MiniMax-M2: 70.4 (#160), Mistral Medium 3.5: 74.7 (#87)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Instruction Following	1329	1414

Long Context Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

MiniMax-M2: 40.5 (#148), Mistral Medium 3.5: 43.2 (#101)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Longer Query	1332	1414

Writing & Preference Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

MiniMax-M2: 53.3 (#157), Mistral Medium 3.5: 58.6 (#113)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Text	1340	1421
LMArena Creative Writing	1288	1372
LMArena Multi-Turn	1362	1423
EQ-Bench 4	—	993

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M2 better than Mistral Medium 3.5?

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: 39.1 versus 35.7 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.