Grok vs MiniMax M2 / M2.5

Which one should you pick? Here's the full breakdown.

Grok

B
7.5/10

xAI's irreverent chatbot with a direct line to X/Twitter -- real-time data meets unfiltered personality

Our Pick

MiniMax M2 / M2.5

A
8.4/10

MiniMax's open-weights frontier -- first open model to match Claude Opus 4.6 on SWE-Bench at 10-20× lower cost

CategoryGrokMiniMax M2 / M2.5
Ease of Use7.06.5
Output Quality7.59.0
Value7.59.5
Features8.08.5
Overall7.58.4

Pricing Comparison

FeatureGrokMiniMax M2 / M2.5
Free TierYesYes
Starting Price$0$0

Benchmark Head-to-Head

Grok 4.20 vs MiniMax M2.5 (230B/10B active MoE)

BenchmarkGrokMiniMax M2 / M2.5
GPQA Diamond85%76.8%
HumanEval90%91%

Which Should You Pick?

Pick Grok if...

  • Stronger on graduate-level science questions (+8.2% on GPQA Diamond)

People who live on X/Twitter and want an AI that can tap into that data in real-time. Also good for users who find mainstream chatbots too sanitized and want something with more personality.

Visit Grok

Pick MiniMax M2 / M2.5 if...

  • Higher output quality (9 vs 7.5)
  • Better value for money (9.5/10)
  • Stronger on python code generation (+1.0% on HumanEval)

Agentic coding and tool-use workflows on a budget. Best price-to-SWE-Bench ratio of any open-weights model in 2026.

Visit MiniMax M2 / M2.5

Our Verdict

MiniMax M2 / M2.5 edges out Grok with a 8.4 vs 7.5 overall score. Both are solid picks, but MiniMax M2 / M2.5 has the advantage in output quality.