MiniMax M2.5 vs Inkling
MiniMax M2.5 leads Inkling on coding, 37.2 to 31.5 on the Vibe Coding Index, and MiniMax M2.5 costs 3.4x less per output token ($1.20 vs $4.05 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 55 benchmarks have a result for both.
MiniMax M2.5 or Inkling: which to pick
Pick MiniMax M2.5 for coding: it scores 37.2 on the Vibe Coding Index against 31.5 for Inkling, though on 3 benchmarks against 6.
Pick Inkling for a larger context window (524K against 205K tokens) and work measured by LMArena WebDev or LiveCodeBench (Vals AI), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 55
- MiniMax M2.5 only
- 13
- Inkling only
- 47
- Like-for-like categories
- 7 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
MiniMax M2.5
MiniMax M2.5 scores 37.2 against 31.5.
3 and 6 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Inkling
Inkling leads, 25.0 against 22.8.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Inkling has a AA Agentic Index result, 22.5.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Inkling
Inkling leads, 87.1% 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
Inkling
Inkling leads, 86.3% against 80.1%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Inkling
Inkling leads, 1224 against 1222.
Same board, both measured
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Inkling has a Vals Index result, 29.0%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Inkling
Inkling takes 524K tokens against 205K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M2.5
MiniMax M2.5 $0.0009, Inkling $0.0030 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
MiniMax M2.5
MiniMax M2.5 $0.62, Inkling $0.76.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- MiniMax M2.5 37.2 from 3 benchmarks, Inkling 31.5 from 6 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- General, 15.3 points apart on average over 18 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- LMArena Text: Japanese: MiniMax M2.5 1171 against Inkling 1429, 42.9 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- MiniMax M2.5 $1.20 against Inkling $4.05 per million output tokens, 3.4x apart.
- Context window
- MiniMax M2.5 takes 205K tokens, Inkling 524K.
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 M2.5 | Bars | Inkling | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 1 | 8 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 2 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 8 | ||
| Math | 1 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 8 | ||
| Web design | 5 | 2 | ||
| General | 0 | 18 | ||
| All shared boards | 7 | 48 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index18
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Inkling | 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 |
| LiveBench coding | Not measured | 64.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1386 | 1414 | Inkling |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 52.1 | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 79.2% | 85.5% | Inkling |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 74.2% | 77.6% | Inkling |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 14.8% | 19.2% | Inkling |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 11.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | Not measured | 14.9% | Only Inkling measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 47.6% | Only Inkling measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 7.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 26.1% | Only Inkling measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 66.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 47.0% | Only Inkling 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 |
| FrontierCode | Not measured | 14.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| FrontierSWE | Not measured | 4.1% | Only Inkling measured |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 32.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| ALE-Bench | 618.2 | 946.0 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1380 | 1466 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1383 | 1465 | Inkling |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1374 | 1404 | Inkling |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1414 | 1399 | MiniMax M2.5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 22.8 | 25.0 | Inkling |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.6 | 148.4 | Inkling |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index14 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 22.5 | Only Inkling measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | Not measured | 1196 | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench research | Not measured | 59.9% | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench browser | Not measured | 16.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | Not measured | 14.1% | Only Inkling measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 46.6% | Only Inkling measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 15.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 28.4% | Only Inkling measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 3.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 38.4% | Only Inkling measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 95.3% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| APEX-Agents | Not measured | 33.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | -$23 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 27 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index08
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 82.1% | 87.1% | Inkling |
| LiveBench reasoning | Not measured | 78.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 78.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 84.8% | 87.2% | Inkling |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 20.5% | 31.9% | Inkling |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 88.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| ARC-AGI | 63.7% | 79.5% | Inkling |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 4.9% | 36.5% | Inkling |
| SimpleBench | Not measured | 50.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 21.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1372 | 1451 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1378 | 1466 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1384 | 1448 | Inkling |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 55.2% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index12
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 88.8% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 88.9% | Only Inkling measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 33.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | Not measured | 4.9% | Only Inkling measured |
| ProofBench | 4.0% | 0.0% | MiniMax M2.5 |
| LMArena Text: math | 1378 | 1479 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1378 | 1460 | Inkling |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index08
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 80.1% | 86.3% | Inkling |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 80.0% | 83.0% | Inkling |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 53.5% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 59.6% | 68.6% | Inkling |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 68.2% | 75.3% | Inkling |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 64.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 92.5% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 41.2% | Only Inkling measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 40.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1369 | 1455 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1357 | 1447 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1366 | 1448 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1356 | 1438 | Inkling |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index52
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1222 | 1224 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1173 | 1198 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1176 | 1165 | MiniMax M2.5 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1172 | 1156 | MiniMax M2.5 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1170 | 1160 | MiniMax M2.5 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1207 | 1205 | MiniMax M2.5 |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1150 | 1108 | MiniMax M2.5 |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 1089 | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench design | Not measured | 58.3% | Only Inkling measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index018
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 29.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | Not measured | 72.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 58.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 36.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 85.4% | Only Inkling measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 49.4% | Only Inkling measured |
| IFBench | 71.6% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 73.3% | 77.3% | Inkling |
| DTBench | Not measured | 87.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 37.6% | Only Inkling 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 | 1442 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1353 | 1425 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1331 | 1390 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: English | 1380 | 1442 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1338 | 1434 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1393 | 1493 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: German | 1361 | 1445 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1171 | 1429 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1233 | 1403 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: French | 1363 | 1455 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1353 | 1449 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1359 | 1430 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1334 | 1450 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1364 | 1437 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1366 | 1435 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1345 | 1404 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1329 | 1394 | Inkling |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.5 | Inkling | 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 M2.5 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 | Thinking Machines Inkling |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | MiniMax | Thinking Machines |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | February 12, 2026 | July 17, 2026 |
| Context window | 205K | 524K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.30 | $0.975 |
| Output $/Mtok | $1.20 | $4.05 |
| Coding index | 37.2 | 31.5 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 3 | 6 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.62 | $0.76 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is MiniMax M2.5 better than Inkling for coding?
Pick MiniMax M2.5 for coding: it scores 37.2 on the Vibe Coding Index against 31.5 for Inkling, though on 3 benchmarks against 6. Pick Inkling for a larger context window (524K against 205K tokens) and work measured by LMArena WebDev or LiveCodeBench (Vals AI), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax M2.5 or Inkling?
MiniMax M2.5 costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Inkling costs $0.975 and $4.05. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, MiniMax M2.5 costs $0.62 and Inkling $0.76.
Which has the bigger context window, MiniMax M2.5 or Inkling?
Inkling, with 524K tokens against 205K.
How many benchmarks is the MiniMax M2.5 vs Inkling comparison based on?
55 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. MiniMax M2.5's coding index rests on 3 independent benchmarks and Inkling's on 6. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.