LOADING DATASHEET
GROUNDED IN REAL HUMAN CONVERSATIONSYOUR BENCH
MiniMax M2.5
◆ OPEN
by MiniMax
OPEN WEIGHTSLOCALAPILONG CONTEXTPAIDREASONING
RANKED #85 OF 231 ASSISTANTS · OVERALL #144 OF 6,574 · VIBE SCORE 6.1 · 86 VOICES
MiniMax-M2.5 is a SOTA large language model designed for real-world productivity. Trained in a diverse range of complex real-world digital working environments, M2.5 builds upon the coding expertise of M2.1...
HAPPY9.9
19 mentions
SAD5.1
2 mentions
VIBE TRAJECTORY
26 weeks · 99 voices
HONEYMOON FADING
Early praise is cooling off in recent weeks.
HOW TO USE IT
Open weights. You can use a hosted service, or download it and run it yourself, free.
RUN IT ON YOUR OWN MACHINE
Open weights: download MiniMax M2.5 once and it's yours. No subscription, no rate limits, works offline.
230B parameters (MoE with 10B active), a Q3 quant file is about 101 GB and Q4 is around 130 GB
- BARE MINIMUM
Mac Studio (M2 Ultra, 128 GB RAM)
128 GB UNIFIED MEMORY
~$3,200 USEDUD-Q3_K_XL quant, ~20 tok/s, 16k context
- SWEET SPOT
Mac Studio (M3 Ultra, 192 GB RAM)
192 GB UNIFIED MEMORY
~$5,500 NEWQ4_K_M quant, ~25 tok/s, 64k context
- FULL POWER
Custom multi-GPU workstation (4x NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada 48GB)
192 GB VRAM
~$28,000 NEWFP8 / Q8, ~60 tok/s, 128k context
LEARN HOW TO SET IT UP
WILL MY BOX RUN MINIMAX M2.5?
The three cards above are researched picks. Search the machine you actually have — we only say yes if it should reply at a usable speed, not just load the weights and crawl.
HARDWARE PICKS & PRICES ARE RESEARCHED FROM THE LIVE WEB AND REFRESHED AUTOMATICALLY. TREAT THEM AS BALLPARK, NOT GOSPEL.
WHAT CAN YOU ACTUALLY DO WITH IT?
Everyday jobs on each of those rigs: how long MiniMax M2.5 takes, and how good the crowd says it is at that kind of work.
| THE JOB | BARE MINIMUMMac Studio (M2 Ultra, 128 GB RAM) | SWEET SPOTMac Studio (M3 Ultra, 192 GB RAM) | FULL POWERCustom multi-GPU workstation (4x NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada 48GB) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Write an emaila paragraph or two, drafted from a one-line brief | ~25 S | ~20 S | ~8 S |
| Summarize a documenta long report boiled down to the points that matter | ~75 S★★★★★ | ~60 S★★★★★ | ~25 S★★★★★ |
| Build a websitea small landing page, markup and styles together | ~6.7 MIN★★★★★ | ~5.3 MIN★★★★★ | ~2.2 MIN★★★★★ |
| Build a backendan API with routes, storage and tests | ~21 MIN★★★★★ | ~17 MIN★★★★★ | ~6.9 MIN★★★★★ |
| Build a gamea playable browser game in one file | ~13 MIN★★★★★ | ~10 MIN★★★★★ | ~4.2 MIN★★★★★ |
STARS ARE THE COMMUNITY SCORE FOR THAT KIND OF WORK, DOCKED FOR HOW SQUASHED THE WEIGHTS GET AT EACH TIER. TIMES ARE COMPUTED FROM RESEARCHED SPEEDS. BALLPARK, NOT GOSPEL.
WHAT THE INTERNET SAYS
People generally like MiniMax M2.5, with some gripes. Biggest praise: help with code. Biggest gripe: price.
69 POSTS · 17 COMMENTS · HACKER NEWS · BLUESKY · REDDIT · LEMMY · GITHUB · DEV FORUMS · BLOG · X
PEOPLE LOVE
- Popular for coding help (3 mentions)
PEOPLE COMPLAIN ABOUT
- People find it expensive (2 mentions)
TOPIC BY TOPIC
- PriceA SORE SPOT
1 thumbs up · 2 thumbs down
- Help with codePEOPLE LOVE THIS
3 thumbs up · 0 thumbs down
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
- FROM REDDIT >
“Minimax M2.5 might actually be the only pragmatic choice for those of us tired of the "Big Lab" pricing scam.”
- FROM BLOG >
“MiniMax M2.5: A Strong Coder with “Only” 230B Parameters The aforementioned GLM-5 and Kimi K2.5 are popular open-weight models, but according to OpenRouter statistics , they pale in comparison to MiniMax M2.5 , which was released on February 12 as well.”
LOOKING FOR AN ALTERNATIVE?
Other models the crowd has fully reviewed, starting with multimodal models like this one.
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Gemini 3.7 Flash> SOURCES (12)
- REDDIT · 2026-02-19 · 206 UPVOTESBuilding an opensource Living Context Engine
Building an opensource Living Context Engine
- X · 2026-08-24 · 126 UPVOTESFree $200 AWS credits for new users — and yes, you can use them for AI models too. AWS Free Tier gives you 6 months to e
Free $200 AWS credits for new users — and yes, you can use them for AI models too. AWS Free Tier gives you 6 months to e
- REDDIT · 2026-02-25 · 112 UPVOTESThe DeepSeek V4 Release Date: What the Evidence Actually Tells Us
The DeepSeek V4 Release Date: What the Evidence Actually Tells Us
- REDDIT · 2026-02-19 · 106 UPVOTESBuilding an opensource Living Context Engine
Building an opensource Living Context Engine
- REDDIT · 2026-04-06 · 101 UPVOTESBuilt my 10x NVidia V100 AI Server - 320gb vram - vLLM Testing Linux Headless - Just a Lawyer,Need Tips
Built my 10x NVidia V100 AI Server - 320gb vram - vLLM Testing Linux Headless - Just a Lawyer,Need Tips
- REDDIT · 2026-02-13 · 49 UPVOTESGLM-5, Kimi K2.5, Minimax M2.5
GLM-5, Kimi K2.5, Minimax M2.5
- REDDIT · 2026-03-15 · 43 UPVOTESMinimax-m2.5 - astonishing performance despite small size
Minimax-m2.5 - astonishing performance despite small size
- REDDIT · 2026-02-17 · 42 UPVOTESSonnet 4.6 scores on the Extended NYT Connections benchmark
Sonnet 4.6 scores on the Extended NYT Connections benchmark
- REDDIT · 2026-02-16 · 33 UPVOTESMinimax M2.5 vs. GLM-5 vs. Kimi k2.5: How do they compare to Codex and Claude for coding?
Minimax M2.5 vs. GLM-5 vs. Kimi k2.5: How do they compare to Codex and Claude for coding?
- REDDIT · 2026-03-27 · 33 UPVOTESComment in r/GithubCopilot
Comment in r/GithubCopilot
- LEMMY · 2026-04-04 · 31 UPVOTESSOTA LLMs via API - EU hosted - What do you use?
SOTA LLMs via API - EU hosted - What do you use?
- REDDIT · 2026-02-18 · 29 UPVOTESWhen will we get new free models?
When will we get new free models?