MiniMax M2.1 vs Qwen3.5-9B Comparison
Comparing MiniMax M2.1 and Qwen3.5-9B across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
MiniMax M2.1 outperforms in 2 benchmarks (IFBench, MMLU-Pro), while Qwen3.5-9B is better at 2 benchmarks (AA-LCR, GPQA).
Both models are evenly matched across the benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Human preference votes
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
Cost data unavailable.
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
MiniMax M2.1 has 221.0B more parameters than Qwen3.5-9B, making it 2455.6% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only MiniMax M2.1 specifies input context (1,000,000 tokens). Only MiniMax M2.1 specifies output context (1,000,000 tokens).
Input Capabilities
Supported data types and modalities
Qwen3.5-9B supports multimodal inputs, whereas MiniMax M2.1 does not.
Qwen3.5-9B can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
MiniMax M2.1
Qwen3.5-9B
License
Usage and distribution terms
MiniMax M2.1 is licensed under MIT, while Qwen3.5-9B uses Apache 2.0.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
MIT
Open weights
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
MiniMax M2.1 was released on 2025-12-23, while Qwen3.5-9B was released on 2026-03-02.
Qwen3.5-9B is 2 months newer than MiniMax M2.1.
Dec 23, 2025
2 months ago
Mar 2, 2026
1 weeks ago
2mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Outputs Comparison
Key Takeaways
MiniMax M2.1
View detailsMiniMax
Qwen3.5-9B
View detailsAlibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Detailed Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|