Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs MiniMax M2
Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads MiniMax M2 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 26.3 to 18.6, and MiniMax M2 costs 2.9x less per output token ($1.02 vs $3.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 18 benchmarks have a result for both.
Gemini 3 Flash Preview or MiniMax M2: which to pick
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a coding score, 43.7 on the Vibe Coding Index; MiniMax M2 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick MiniMax M2 for output tokens 2.9x cheaper ($1.02 vs $3.00 per million) and work measured by τ²-Bench Telecom, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 18
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview only
- 53
- MiniMax M2 only
- 32
- 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
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Gemini 3 Flash Preview
Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads, 26.3 against 18.6.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a GPQA Diamond result, 87.9%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a AIME result, 95.6%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a MMLU Pro result, 88.6%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Gemini 3 Flash Preview
Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads, 1196 against 1143.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemini 3 Flash Preview
Gemini 3 Flash Preview takes 1.05M tokens against 205K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M2
Gemini 3 Flash Preview $0.0020, MiniMax M2 $0.0008 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Gemini 3 Flash Preview
Gemini 3 Flash Preview $0.37, MiniMax M2 $0.702.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview 43.7 from 2 benchmarks, MiniMax M2 not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Math, 18.7 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Terminal-Bench: Gemini 3 Flash Preview 64.3% against MiniMax M2 30.0%, 34.2 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview $3.00 against MiniMax M2 $1.02 per million output tokens, 2.9x apart.
- Context window
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview takes 1.05M tokens, MiniMax M2 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.
| Category | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Bars | MiniMax M2 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 4 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 0 | ||
| Math | 2 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 1 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 4 | 0 | ||
| General | 2 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 17 | 1 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index40
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax M2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 75.8% | 61.0% | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1297 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 85.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 75.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 20.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 6.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 0.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 53.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 90.8% | 82.6% | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 38.6% | 25.8% | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| Terminal-Bench | 64.3% | 30.0% | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| GSO-Bench | 9.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| WeirdML | 61.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1367.2 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1371 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1373 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1306 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| SciCode | 12.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 21 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax M2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 26.3 | 18.6 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax M2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1111 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1063 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1090 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1051 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1161 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1036 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 42.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 11.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 18.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 26.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 80.4% | 86.8% | MiniMax M2 |
| BALROG | 48.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| DeepResearch Bench | 49.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $3,635 | $161 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| Neither model has a result on the other 27 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax M2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 87.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 87.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 89.8% | 77.7% | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 36.6% | 13.7% | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 89.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ARC-AGI | 84.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 33.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| SimpleBench | 61.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Chess puzzles | 39.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 26.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| VPCT | 72.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1357 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1338 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1376 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | Not measured | 57.8% | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax M2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 95.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 93.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| AA Math Index | 97.0 | 78.3 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 97.0% | 78.3% | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 95.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 51.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 17.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ProofBench | 15.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1351 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1368 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax M2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 88.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 86.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 55.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 66.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 73.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 68.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 95.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 55.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 89.0% | 82.0% | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| SimpleQA Verified | 66.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| GeoBench | 88.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1348 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1367 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1349 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1336 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | 63.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index40
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax M2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1196 | 1143 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| Design Arena: UI components | Not measured | 1137 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1166 | 1118 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| Design Arena: data viz | Not measured | 1140 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1183 | 1098 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1189 | 1135 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| Design Arena: SVG | Not measured | 1100 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax M2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 51.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 69.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 52.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| IFBench | 78.0% | 72.3% | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 78.0% | 64.3% | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| DTBench | 89.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMCA | 43.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1340 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1329 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1286 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1364 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1313 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1366 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1357 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1336 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1326 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1330 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1312 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1361 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1331 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1295 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1298 | Only MiniMax M2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax M2 | 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
MiniMax M2 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
MiniMax M2 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
MiniMax M2 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.
| Specification | Google Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax M2 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | MiniMax | |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | December 17, 2025 | October 23, 2025 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 205K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.50 | $0.255 |
| Output $/Mtok | $3.00 | $1.02 |
| Coding index | 43.7 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.37 | $0.702 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview better than MiniMax M2 for coding?
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a coding score, 43.7 on the Vibe Coding Index; MiniMax M2 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick MiniMax M2 for output tokens 2.9x cheaper ($1.02 vs $3.00 per million) and work measured by τ²-Bench Telecom, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Flash Preview or MiniMax M2?
Gemini 3 Flash Preview costs $0.50 per million input tokens and $3.00 per million output tokens; MiniMax M2 costs $0.255 and $1.02. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Gemini 3 Flash Preview costs $0.37 and MiniMax M2 $0.702.
Which has the bigger context window, Gemini 3 Flash Preview or MiniMax M2?
Gemini 3 Flash Preview, with 1.05M tokens against 205K.
How many benchmarks is the Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs MiniMax M2 comparison based on?
18 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Gemini 3 Flash Preview's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and MiniMax M2's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.