Model Comparison 2026

MiniMax M2.1 vs Qwen3 235B A22B

MiniMax M2.1
MiniMax · Balanced · Open weights
$0.49/1M · 205K ctx
Qwen3 235B A22B
Alibaba (Qwen) · Budget · Open weights
$0.09/1M · 262K ctx

Community Vote

Pick a winner in each dimension — change your vote anytime.

Output Quality
Correctness and depth of what it produces
Agentic Ability
Tool calls, instruction-following, and multi-step tasks
Speed
Tokens per second and time-to-first-token
Value for $
How much capability you get per dollar
Reliability
Consistent results — fewer refusals, loops, and format breaks

Specs & Pricing, Side by Side

Spec
MiniMax M2.1
Qwen3 235B
Maker
MiniMax
Alibaba (Qwen)
Blended price / 1M
$0.49
$0.09
Input / output
$0.29 in · $0.95 out / 1M tokens
$0.09 in · $0.10 out / 1M tokens
Context window
205K
262K
Open weights
Yes
Yes
Tool use
Yes
Yes
Reasoning
Yes
No
Output Quality
7.8
8.0
Agentic Ability
8.1
8.0
Speed
8.0
8.2
Value for $
9.5
10.0
Reliability
8.3
8.8

Pricing and capabilities synced from the OpenRouter catalogue. Scores are editorial (0–10).

Verdict: MiniMax M2.1 or Qwen3 235B?

Updated 2026-06-22

Choose MiniMax M2.1 if you want tool-heavy personal and autonomous agents on a budget. Choose Qwen3 235B A22B if you want self-hosted or ultra-cheap open-weight agents.

In our editorial scoring, Qwen3 235B A22B leads in 4 of five dimensions (output quality, speed, value for $ and reliability), while MiniMax M2.1 leads in 1. On price, MiniMax M2.1 runs about $0.49 per 1M tokens (blended) and is open-weight; Qwen3 235B A22B is about $0.09 and open-weight.

Where MiniMax M2.1 falls short
  • Shorter context than M3
  • Behind frontier on quality
Full MiniMax M2.1 breakdown →
Where Qwen3 235B falls short
  • Behind frontier models on quality
  • Needs real GPUs to self-host well
Full Qwen3 235B breakdown →

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