MiniMax M2.1 vs Mistral Large 4
Mistral Large 4 leads MiniMax M2.1 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 38.4 to 20.9, and MiniMax M2.1 costs 3.5x less per output token ($1.20 vs $4.18 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 13 benchmarks have a result for both.
MiniMax M2.1 or Mistral Large 4: which to pick
Only Mistral Large 4 has a coding score, 56.4 on the Vibe Coding Index; MiniMax M2.1 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick MiniMax M2.1 for output tokens 3.5x cheaper ($1.20 vs $4.18 per million) and work measured by MedScribe (Vals AI), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 13
- MiniMax M2.1 only
- 21
- Mistral Large 4 only
- 68
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 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 Mistral Large 4 has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Mistral Large 4
Mistral Large 4 leads, 38.4 against 20.9.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only MiniMax M2.1 has a GPQA Diamond result, 78.5%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only MiniMax M2.1 has a AIME result, 77.9%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only MiniMax M2.1 has a MMLU Pro result, 87.0%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Mistral Large 4
Mistral Large 4 leads, 1258 against 1201.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Mistral Large 4
Mistral Large 4 takes 1.05M tokens against 205K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M2.1
MiniMax M2.1 $0.0009, Mistral Large 4 $0.0034 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only MiniMax M2.1 has the number, $0.59.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- MiniMax M2.1 not benchmarked, Mistral Large 4 56.4 from 5 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 19.6 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- ALE-Bench: MiniMax M2.1 623.8 against Mistral Large 4 1213.2, 19.6 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- MiniMax M2.1 $1.20 against Mistral Large 4 $4.18 per million output tokens, 3.5x apart.
- Context window
- MiniMax M2.1 takes 205K tokens, Mistral Large 4 1.05M.
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 | MiniMax M2.1 | Bars | Mistral Large 4 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 1 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 1 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 1 | ||
| Web design | 0 | 7 | ||
| General | 1 | 1 | ||
| All shared boards | 1 | 12 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index01
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Mistral Large 4 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | Not measured | 60.0% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1543 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 81.8% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 74.8% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 27.8% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 78.4% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 30.6% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | Not measured | 45.3% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | Not measured | 33.1% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 14.3% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 81.0% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 54.2% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 28.8% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| Terminal-Bench | 36.6% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| FrontierCode | Not measured | 39.4% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 623.8 | 1213.2 | Mistral Large 4 |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1478 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1467 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1559 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1487 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 19 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Mistral Large 4 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 20.9 | 38.4 | Mistral Large 4 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 150.0 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Mistral Large 4 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench research | Not measured | 28.1% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LiveBench browser | Not measured | 8.0% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | Not measured | 11.8% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 54.7% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 30.4% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 31.7% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 17.5% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 56.2% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 67.0% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 85.4% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 31 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Mistral Large 4 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 78.5% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | Not measured | 83.9% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | Not measured | 12.2% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 83.0% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 23.2% | 35.0% | Mistral Large 4 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 88.1% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 33.0% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 17.0% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1444 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1444 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1442 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | Not measured | 1288 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Mistral Large 4 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 77.9% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | 89.0% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 87.8% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| AA Math Index | 82.7 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 82.7% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 98.3% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 58.6% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | Not measured | 26.8% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 10.0% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1469 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1462 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Mistral Large 4 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 87.0% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 75.5% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 55.8% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 58.9% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 66.3% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 91.2% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 34.1% | 40.7% | Mistral Large 4 |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 87.5% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 20.0% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1448 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1433 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1425 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1439 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index07
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Mistral Large 4 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1201 | 1258 | Mistral Large 4 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1220 | 1273 | Mistral Large 4 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1134 | 1225 | Mistral Large 4 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1207 | 1275 | Mistral Large 4 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1164 | 1252 | Mistral Large 4 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1190 | 1259 | Mistral Large 4 |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1131 | 1232 | Mistral Large 4 |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 1202 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LiveBench design | Not measured | 65.6% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Mistral Large 4 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | Not measured | 76.5% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 80.8% | 80.4% | MiniMax M2.1 |
| IFBench | 69.9% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 67.7% | 81.3% | Mistral Large 4 |
| DTBench | Not measured | 88.2% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 35.8% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Surface Evolver Bench | Not measured | 28.1% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Furniture assembly | Not measured | 20.8% | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1431 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1422 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1363 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Vision | Not measured | 1272 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1433 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1422 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1492 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1415 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1492 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1455 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1417 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1435 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1428 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1386 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1378 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | Not measured | 1283 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | Not measured | 1284 | Only Mistral Large 4 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 21 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Mistral Large 4 | 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 M2.1 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
MiniMax M2.1 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
MiniMax M2.1 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 | MiniMax M2.1 | Mistral Large 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | MiniMax | Mistral AI |
| Weights | Open weights | No public weights listed |
| Released | December 23, 2025 | October 6, 2026 |
| Context window | 205K | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.30 | $1.36 |
| Output $/Mtok | $1.20 | $4.18 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 56.4 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 1 | 5 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.59 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is MiniMax M2.1 better than Mistral Large 4 for coding?
Only Mistral Large 4 has a coding score, 56.4 on the Vibe Coding Index; MiniMax M2.1 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick MiniMax M2.1 for output tokens 3.5x cheaper ($1.20 vs $4.18 per million) and work measured by MedScribe (Vals AI), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax M2.1 or Mistral Large 4?
MiniMax M2.1 costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Mistral Large 4 costs $1.36 and $4.18. Cost per solved task is known for MiniMax M2.1 only.
Which has the bigger context window, MiniMax M2.1 or Mistral Large 4?
Mistral Large 4, with 1.05M tokens against 205K.
How many benchmarks is the MiniMax M2.1 vs Mistral Large 4 comparison based on?
13 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. MiniMax M2.1's coding index rests on 1 independent benchmark and Mistral Large 4's on 5. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.