MiniMax M2 / M2.5 vs Qwen (Alibaba)
Which one should you pick? Here's the full breakdown.
MiniMax M2 / M2.5
MiniMax's open-weights frontier -- first open model to match Claude Opus 4.6 on SWE-Bench at 10-20× lower cost
Qwen (Alibaba)
Alibaba's open-weights family -- Qwen3.5, Qwen3-Coder-Next, Qwen3-VL, Qwen3-Max. Apache 2.0 flagship sizes.
| Category | MiniMax M2 / M2.5 | Qwen (Alibaba) |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 6.5 | 7.0 |
| Output Quality | 9.0 | 9.0 |
| Value | 9.5 | 10.0 |
| Features | 8.5 | 9.0 |
| Overall | 8.4 | 8.8 |
Pricing Comparison
| Feature | MiniMax M2 / M2.5 | Qwen (Alibaba) |
|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | Yes | Yes |
| Starting Price | $0 | $0 |
Benchmark Head-to-Head
MiniMax M2.5 (230B/10B active MoE) vs Qwen3.5-397B MoE
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2 / M2.5 | Qwen (Alibaba) |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 82.1% | 83.5% |
| GPQA Diamond | 76.8% | 78.2% |
| SWE-Bench Verified | 80.2% | 69.4% |
| HumanEval | 91% | 92.5% |
| AIME 2025 | 85.3% | 87% |
Which Should You Pick?
Pick MiniMax M2 / M2.5 if...
- ✓Stronger on (+10.8% on SWE-Bench Verified)
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 / M2.5Pick Qwen (Alibaba) if...
- ✓Stronger on (+1.7% on AIME 2025)
Developers who want frontier-tier open weights with Apache 2.0 licensing. Qwen3-Coder-Next is arguably the best local coding model; Qwen3.5-397B is a top-3 open generalist.
Visit Qwen (Alibaba)Our Verdict
Qwen (Alibaba) edges out MiniMax M2 / M2.5 with a 8.8 vs 8.4 overall score. Both are solid picks, but Qwen (Alibaba) has the advantage in value.