Claude Opus 4.8 vs MiniMax M2.5

Claude Opus 4.8 leads MiniMax M2.5 on coding, 65.0 to 37.2 on the Vibe Coding Index, and MiniMax M2.5 costs 20.8x less per output token ($1.20 vs $25.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 62 benchmarks have a result for both.

Replace Claude Opus 4.8 Replace MiniMax M2.5

Claude Opus 4.8Anthropic

Coding: 65.0
Overall: 69.8
Output $/M: $25.00

MiniMax M2.5MiniMax

Coding: 37.2
Overall: 37.3
Output $/M: $1.20

vs boards won of 62 shared

Claude Opus 4.8 or MiniMax M2.5: which to pick

Pick Claude Opus 4.8 for coding: it scores 65.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 37.2 for MiniMax M2.5.

Pick MiniMax M2.5 for output tokens 20.8x cheaper ($1.20 vs $25.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.62 against $2.17).

Model AClaude Opus 4.8Anthropic65.0/1006 independent benchmarks$2.17 per solved task Model BMiniMax M2.5MiniMax37.2/1003 independent benchmarks$0.62 per solved task

62749

Shared results: 62
Claude Opus 4.8 only: 74
MiniMax M2.5 only: 9
Like-for-like categories: 8 of 9

Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.

Which one for your work

Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.

Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 scores 65.0 against 37.2.
6 and 3 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 leads, 41.8 against 22.8.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.8 has a AA Agentic Index result, 41.9.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 leads, 92.4% against 82.1%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
No call
Only MiniMax M2.5 has a AIME result, 88.8%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 leads, 89.6% against 80.1%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 leads, 1258 against 1222.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 takes 1M tokens against 205K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M2.5
Claude Opus 4.8 $0.018, MiniMax M2.5 $0.0009 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
MiniMax M2.5
Claude Opus 4.8 $2.17, MiniMax M2.5 $0.62.
Published attempt cost and pass rate

At a glance

Coding index: Claude Opus 4.8 65.0 from 6 benchmarks, MiniMax M2.5 37.2 from 3 benchmarks.
Widest category: Math, 34.3 points apart on average over 3 shared benchmarks.
Widest single gap: Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): Claude Opus 4.8 82.7% against MiniMax M2.5 14.8%, 67.9 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
Output price: Claude Opus 4.8 $25.00 against MiniMax M2.5 $1.20 per million output tokens, 20.8x apart.
Context window: Claude Opus 4.8 takes 1M tokens, MiniMax M2.5 205K.

Benchmark by benchmark

First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.

Boards won, where both have a result
Category	Claude Opus 4.8	MiniMax M2.5
Coding	12	0
Intelligence	2	0
Agentic work	1	1
Reasoning	9	0
Math	3	0
Knowledge	8	0
Web design	7	0
General	18	1
All shared boards	60	2

CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index120

Coding benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.8 and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.8	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
SWE-bench Verified	Not measured	75.8%	Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
SWE-bench Multilingual	Not measured	68.3%	Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
LiveBench coding	77.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LMArena WebDev	1556	1386	Claude Opus 4.8
AA Coding Index	74.3	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LiveCodeBench (Vals AI)	87.8%	79.2%	Claude Opus 4.8
SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI)	88.6%	74.2%	Claude Opus 4.8
Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI)	23.2%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI)	82.7%	14.8%	Claude Opus 4.8
Code migration (Vals AI)	47.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
ProgramBench (Vals AI)	1.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI)	71.9%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
SkillsBench (Vals AI)	59.2%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
SciCode	54.4%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run)	58.3%	34.8%	Claude Opus 4.8
Terminal-Bench	Not measured	42.7%	Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
FrontierCode	46.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
GSO-Bench	47.1%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
WeirdML	82.9%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
ALE-Bench	Not measured	618.2	Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
LMArena Text: coding	1490	1380	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: software and IT	1488	1383	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena WebDev: React	1557	1374	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena WebDev: HTML	1543	1414	Claude Opus 4.8
SciCode	12.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
SWE Atlas: Codebase QnA	57.3%	10.3%	Claude Opus 4.8
SWE Atlas: Refactoring	46.7%	19.5%	Claude Opus 4.8
SWE Atlas: Test Writing	49.6%	18.6%	Claude Opus 4.8
Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here

IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20

Intelligence benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.8 and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.8	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
AA Intelligence Index	41.8	22.8	Claude Opus 4.8
Epoch Capabilities Index	159.0	146.6	Claude Opus 4.8

Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11

Agentic work benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.8 and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.8	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
AA Agentic Index	41.9	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Design Arena: agents building web apps	1233	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps	1249	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Design Arena: agents building mobile apps	1223	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Design Arena: agents building Android apps	1233	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Design Arena: agents building Godot games	1231	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Design Arena: agents building games	1239	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Design Arena: HTML slides	1171	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Design Arena: PowerPoint slides	1204	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Design Arena: spreadsheets	1311	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LiveBench research	81.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LiveBench browser	96.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LiveBench long agentic	48.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Finance Agent (Vals AI)	53.9%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI)	30.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Legal Research Bench (Vals AI)	43.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI)	69.4%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI)	4.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Time Horizon Index (Vals AI)	11.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
τ²-Bench Telecom	94.4%	95.3%	MiniMax M2.5
APEX-Agents	48.9%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Remote Labor Index	8.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
OSWorld 2.0	20.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
DeepResearch Bench	50.2%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
PostTrainBench	33.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Vending-Bench 2	$5,787	-$23	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Search	1204	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
MCP Atlas	82.2%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here

ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index90

Reasoning benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.8 and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.8	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
GPQA Diamond	92.4%	82.1%	Claude Opus 4.8
LiveBench reasoning	89.2%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
MMMU Pro (Vals AI)	86.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run)	92.0%	84.8%	Claude Opus 4.8
Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run)	48.7%	20.5%	Claude Opus 4.8
GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run)	91.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
ARC-AGI	92.5%	63.7%	Claude Opus 4.8
ARC-AGI-2	72.1%	4.9%	Claude Opus 4.8
SimpleBench	64.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Chess puzzles	52.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Mystery game puzzles	36.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
EBR-bench	28.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LMArena Text: hard prompts	1482	1372	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: expert	1503	1378	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: hard prompts in English	1487	1384	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Vision: diagrams	1315	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LMArena Vision: homework	1337	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Kagi LLM Benchmark	88.8%	55.2%	Claude Opus 4.8
Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here

MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30

Math benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.8 and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.8	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
AIME	Not measured	88.8%	Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
OTIS Mock AIME	98.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3	80.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
FrontierMath, tier 4	56.1%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
ProofBench	69.0%	4.0%	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: math	1486	1378	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: mathematical work	1497	1378	Claude Opus 4.8
MathArena	39.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here

KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index80

Knowledge benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.8 and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.8	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
MMLU Pro	89.6%	80.1%	Claude Opus 4.8
LegalBench (Vals AI)	83.6%	80.0%	Claude Opus 4.8
CaseLaw (Vals AI)	Not measured	53.5%	Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
CorpFin (Vals AI)	66.7%	59.6%	Claude Opus 4.8
TaxEval (Vals AI)	75.6%	68.2%	Claude Opus 4.8
MortgageTax (Vals AI)	69.9%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
MedQA (Vals AI)	Not measured	92.5%	Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
MedCode (Vals AI)	53.2%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
SimpleQA Verified	53.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LMArena Text: science	1477	1369	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare	1464	1357	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: legal and government	1477	1366	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: business and finance	1458	1356	Claude Opus 4.8
FACTS Benchmark Suite	53.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here

Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index70

Web design benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.8 and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.8	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
Design Arena: websites	1258	1222	Claude Opus 4.8
Design Arena: UI components	1255	1170	Claude Opus 4.8
Design Arena: game dev	1264	1176	Claude Opus 4.8
Design Arena: data viz	1240	1172	Claude Opus 4.8
Design Arena: 3D	1222	1170	Claude Opus 4.8
Design Arena: all code categories	1255	1207	Claude Opus 4.8
Design Arena: SVG	1194	1150	Claude Opus 4.8
Design Arena: ASCII art	1277	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LiveBench design	78.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured

GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index181

General benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.8 and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.8	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
LiveBench data analysis	66.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI)	68.1%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
SAGE (Vals AI)	54.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
MedScribe (Vals AI)	85.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Vals Multimodal Index	70.9%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
IFBench	62.2%	71.6%	MiniMax M2.5
Long context reasoning (AA-LCR)	77.7%	73.3%	Claude Opus 4.8
DTBench	94.9%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LMCA	57.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
CL-bench	Not measured	11.4%	Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
Surface Evolver Bench	87.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Furniture assembly	42.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
CL-bench Life	Not measured	6.3%	Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
LMArena Text	1461	1359	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: instruction following	1476	1353	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: creative writing	1454	1331	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Vision	1294	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LMArena Text: English	1468	1380	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: non-English	1450	1338	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: Chinese	1506	1393	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: German	1472	1361	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: Japanese	1442	1171	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: Korean	1431	1233	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: French	1481	1363	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: Spanish	1465	1353	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: Russian	1474	1359	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: Polish	1459	1334	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: multi-turn	1476	1364	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: longer queries	1483	1366	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: writing and language	1461	1345	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Text: entertainment and media	1440	1329	Claude Opus 4.8
LMArena Vision: English	1293	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LMArena Vision: Chinese	1346	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LMArena Vision: reading text	1303	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LMArena Vision: humor	1282	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LMArena Vision: creative writing	1301	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
LMArena Document	1475	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
EQ-Bench 4	1281	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here

Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared

Image generation benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.8 and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.8	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
Neither model has a result on 5 boards here

What each workload costs

Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.

Chat turn

1K input + 500 output tokens

Claude Opus 4.8$0.018Fits in one request

MiniMax M2.5$0.0009Fits in one request

MiniMax M2.5 costs less

Repository review

50K input + 3K output tokens

Claude Opus 4.8$0.325Fits in one request

MiniMax M2.5$0.019Fits in one request

MiniMax M2.5 costs less

Agent loop

200K input + 10K output tokens

Claude Opus 4.8$1.25Fits in one request

MiniMax M2.5$0.072Exceeds the context window

MiniMax M2.5 costs less

Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.

Specification differences

The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.

Specifications of Claude Opus 4.8 and MiniMax M2.5
Specification	Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8	MiniMax M2.5
Maker	Anthropic	MiniMax
Weights	No public weights listed	Open weights
Released	May 27, 2026	February 12, 2026
Context window	1M	205K
Input $/Mtok	$5.00	$0.30
Output $/Mtok	$25.00	$1.20
Coding index	65.0	37.2
Independent measurements behind it	6	3
Cost per solved task	$2.17	$0.62
Source	OpenRouter listing	OpenRouter listing

Questions

Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than MiniMax M2.5 for coding?

Pick Claude Opus 4.8 for coding: it scores 65.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 37.2 for MiniMax M2.5. Pick MiniMax M2.5 for output tokens 20.8x cheaper ($1.20 vs $25.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.62 against $2.17).

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or MiniMax M2.5?

Claude Opus 4.8 costs $5.00 per million input tokens and $25.00 per million output tokens; MiniMax M2.5 costs $0.30 and $1.20. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Claude Opus 4.8 costs $2.17 and MiniMax M2.5 $0.62.

Which has the bigger context window, Claude Opus 4.8 or MiniMax M2.5?

Claude Opus 4.8, with 1M tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks is the Claude Opus 4.8 vs MiniMax M2.5 comparison based on?

62 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Claude Opus 4.8's coding index rests on 6 independent benchmarks and MiniMax M2.5's on 3. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.

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Claude Opus 4.8 or MiniMax M2.5: which to pick

Which one for your work

Coding

Intelligence

Agentic work

Reasoning

Math

Knowledge

Web design

Long documents

Everyday cost

Cost per solved task

At a glance

Benchmark by benchmark

What each workload costs

Chat turn

Repository review

Agent loop

Specification differences

Questions

Compare next