Model comparison
MiniMax-M2 vs Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
MiniMax-M2 and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B score almost the same on the Noometry Index (37.4 vs 37.6), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Last verified . 2 shared benchmarks.
MiniMax
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2 scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B in 3 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads 51.3 to 37.0.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 14.8% for MiniMax-M2 and 41.6% for Qwen3.6 35B-A3B.
- MiniMax-M2 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $1.49 for Qwen3.6 35B-A3B.
- Qwen3.6 35B-A3B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 205K.
Side by side
| MiniMax-M2 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 37.4 | 37.6 |
| Released | 2025-10-27 | 2026-04-01 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 205K | 262K |
| Max output | 131K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | $0.25 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.20 | $1.49 |
| Results tracked | 21 | 14 |
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Category by category
Coding MiniMax-M2 leads
MiniMax-M2: 39.3 (#159), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 37.2 (#196)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 61% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1297 | — |
| SciCode | — | 35.8% |
| WeirdML | — | 34.5% |
| LMArena Coding | 1370 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use MiniMax-M2 leads
MiniMax-M2: 25.1 (#109), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 22.1 (#134)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 30% | 23% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 160.6 | — |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads
MiniMax-M2: 19.4 (#258), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 28.0 (#109)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | 14.8% | 41.6% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 57.8% | — |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 26% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1357 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 22% |
| DTBench | — | 73.9% |
| LMCA | — | 29.7% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 44.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 143.93 |
Math Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads
MiniMax-M2: 37.3 (#160), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 38.9 (#121)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 20.4% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 86.7% |
| LMArena Math | 1352 | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads
MiniMax-M2: 37.0 (#163), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 51.3 (#68)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 84.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1337 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
MiniMax-M2: 45.3 (#171), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1313 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1366 | — |
| LMArena French | 1335 | — |
| LMArena German | 1355 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1331 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1326 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
MiniMax-M2: 70.2 (#166), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1328 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
MiniMax-M2: 40.5 (#153), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1331 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
MiniMax-M2: 53.0 (#162), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1340 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1286 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1361 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is MiniMax-M2 better than Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?
MiniMax-M2 and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B score almost the same on the Noometry Index (37.4 vs 37.6), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2 or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?
MiniMax-M2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 35B-A3B lists at $0.25 and $1.49.
Is MiniMax-M2 or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B better for coding?
MiniMax-M2 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.3 versus 37.2 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.6 35B-A3B does, with 262K tokens against 205K.
How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2 and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B share?
2 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2 has 21 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B has 14.