MiniMax M2.5 vs Moondream 3 Preview
MiniMax M2.5 costs 2.1x less per output token than Moondream 3 Preview ($1.20 vs $2.50 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; no benchmark has tested both models yet.
- Coding
- 37.2
- Overall
- 37.3
- Output $/M
- $1.20
- Coding
- No data
- Overall
- No data
- Output $/M
- $2.50
MiniMax M2.5 or Moondream 3 Preview: which to pick
Only MiniMax M2.5 has a coding score, 37.2 on the Vibe Coding Index; Moondream 3 Preview has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
No benchmark has tested both yet. MiniMax M2.5 has results on SWE-bench Verified, SWE-bench Multilingual and LMArena WebDev; Moondream 3 Preview has none yet. Compare them on price and context instead.
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 MiniMax M2.5 has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only MiniMax M2.5 has a AA Intelligence Index result, 22.8.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only MiniMax M2.5 has a GPQA Diamond result, 82.1%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only MiniMax M2.5 has a AIME result, 88.8%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only MiniMax M2.5 has a MMLU Pro result, 80.1%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only MiniMax M2.5 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1222.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
MiniMax M2.5
MiniMax M2.5 takes 205K tokens against 32K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M2.5
MiniMax M2.5 $0.0009, Moondream 3 Preview $0.0015 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only MiniMax M2.5 has the number, $0.62.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- MiniMax M2.5 37.2 from 3 benchmarks, Moondream 3 Preview not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- None yet: no category has been tested on both models.
- Widest single gap
- None yet: no benchmark has tested both models.
- Output price
- MiniMax M2.5 $1.20 against Moondream 3 Preview $2.50 per million output tokens, 2.1x apart.
- Context window
- MiniMax M2.5 takes 205K tokens, Moondream 3 Preview 32K.
Benchmark by benchmark
Every board either model has a result on, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale. Only one model is measured on each, so no row names a leader.
CodingDirectional onlySix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index13 boards measured
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Moondream 3 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 75.8% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 68.3% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1386 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 79.2% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 74.2% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 14.8% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 34.8% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench | 42.7% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 618.2 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1380 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1383 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1374 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1414 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 26 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards measured
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Moondream 3 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 22.8 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.6 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards measured
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Moondream 3 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 95.3% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | -$23 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 39 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards measured
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Moondream 3 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 82.1% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 84.8% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 20.5% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| ARC-AGI | 63.7% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 4.9% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1372 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1378 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1384 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 55.2% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards measured
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Moondream 3 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 88.8% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| ProofBench | 4.0% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1378 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1378 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10 boards measured
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Moondream 3 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 80.1% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 80.0% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 53.5% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 59.6% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 68.2% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 92.5% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1369 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1357 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1366 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1356 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards measured
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Moondream 3 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1222 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1173 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1176 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1171 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1170 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1207 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1149 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index21 boards measured
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Moondream 3 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 71.6% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 73.3% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| CL-bench | 11.4% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| CL-bench Life | 6.3% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1359 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1353 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1331 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1380 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1338 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1393 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1361 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1171 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1233 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1363 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1353 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1359 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1334 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1364 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1366 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1345 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1329 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 25 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 M2.5 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
MiniMax M2.5 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
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.
| Specification | MiniMax M2.5 | Moondream 3 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | MiniMax | Moondream |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | February 12, 2026 | October 15, 2026 |
| Context window | 205K | 32K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.30 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $1.20 | $2.50 |
| Coding index | 37.2 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 3 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.62 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is MiniMax M2.5 better than Moondream 3 Preview for coding?
Only MiniMax M2.5 has a coding score, 37.2 on the Vibe Coding Index; Moondream 3 Preview has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax M2.5 or Moondream 3 Preview?
MiniMax M2.5 costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Moondream 3 Preview costs $0.30 and $2.50. Cost per solved task is known for MiniMax M2.5 only.
Which has the bigger context window, MiniMax M2.5 or Moondream 3 Preview?
MiniMax M2.5, with 205K tokens against 32K.
Has any benchmark tested both MiniMax M2.5 and Moondream 3 Preview?
No benchmark has tested both yet. MiniMax M2.5 has results on SWE-bench Verified, SWE-bench Multilingual and LMArena WebDev; Moondream 3 Preview has none yet. Compare them on price and context instead. Data as of October 21, 2026.