MiniMax-M3 vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: MiniMax-M3 by MiniMax or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
MiniMax-M3 scores 20.0 points higher (29.2 vs 9.2) but costs 1.3× as much to run the benchmark ($538 vs $405; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick MiniMax-M3 when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3 Coder Next.
| Metric | MiniMax-M3 | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 29.2 | 9.2 | −68.5% Qwen3 Coder Next is 68.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $537.98 | $405.10 | −24.7% Qwen3 Coder Next is 24.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 26.74s | 6.44s | −75.9% Qwen3 Coder Next is 75.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $0.31 / $1.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Video | Text |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs MiniMax-M3: 68.5% less intelligence, 24.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 75.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- MiniMax-M3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
MiniMax-M3Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/minimax-m3/qwen3-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/minimax-m3/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill