ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Qwen3.5 Plus vs Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct vs MiniMax-M2.5

Qwen3.5 Plus comes out ahead, 66 to 62 and 61 on our weighted score, though Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct is 2.6× cheaper per token.

  1. Our pick

    Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 Plus

    Released Feb 16, 2026

    66/100
    • ECI146.8
    • Price$0.40 / $2.40
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 Plus

  2. Meta

    Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct

    Released Apr 5, 2025

    62/100
    • ECI129.7
    • Price$0.225 / $0.69
    • Context10M
    Full specs Remove Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct

  3. MiniMax

    MiniMax-M2.5

    Released Feb 12, 2026

    61/100
    • ECI146.7
    • Price$0.30 / $1.20
    • Context205K
    Full specs Remove MiniMax-M2.5
01 — Verdict

Qwen3.5 Plus is our pick

Qwen3.5 Plus is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct (62) and MiniMax-M2.5 (61). It leads on inputs & features. Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct wins on price and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.5 PlusCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 · MiniMax-M2.5 146.7 · Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 129.7
  • Lowest priceLlama 4 Scout 17B InstructLlama 4 Scout 17B Instruct $0.341 · MiniMax-M2.5 $0.525 · Qwen3.5 Plus $0.90 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextLlama 4 Scout 17B InstructLlama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 10,000,000 · Qwen3.5 Plus 1,000,000 · MiniMax-M2.5 204,800 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video · Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct: Text, Images · MiniMax-M2.5: Text
  • Self-hostingLlama 4 Scout 17B Instruct and MiniMax-M2.5Publishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen3.5 PlusLlama 4 Scout 17B InstructMiniMax-M2.5
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%745274
Price25%527263
Inputs & features15%705035
Context window10%6010032
Overall100%66/10062/10061/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Qwen3.5 Plus vs Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct vs MiniMax-M2.5 specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)Llama 4 Scout 17B InstructMetaMiniMax-M2.5MiniMax
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)146.8 (best)129.7146.7
ECI rank#65 of 148 (best)#126 of 148#66 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions84.9% (best)51.8%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics86.7% (best)7.8%—
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions25.4%——
Price per million tokens
Input$0.40$0.225 (best)$0.30
Output$2.40$0.69 (best)$1.20
Cached input——$0.03
Blended (3:1)$0.90$0.341 (best)$0.525
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Alibaba APIMedian of 4 providersOfficial MiniMax (minimax.io) API
Limits
Context window1,000,000 tokens10,000,000 tokens (best)204,800 tokens
Max output65,536 tokens16,384 tokens131,072 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesNo
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoYesNoNo
ReasoningYesNoYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoNoNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpenOpen
API model IDqwen3.5-plus—MiniMax-M2.5
API providers10421 (best)
ReleasedFeb 16, 2026Apr 5, 2025Feb 12, 2026
Knowledge cutoffApr 2025Aug 2024—
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • Qwen3.5 Plus$8.80
  • Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct$3.63
  • MiniMax-M2.5$5.40
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Qwen3.5 Plus, Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct or MiniMax-M2.5?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct (62) and MiniMax-M2.5 (61). It leads on inputs & features. Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct wins on price and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 Plus, Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct or MiniMax-M2.5?

Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct is cheaper at $0.225 input / $0.69 output per million tokens (median across 4 API providers). MiniMax-M2.5 costs $0.30 input / $1.20 output per million tokens (official MiniMax (minimax.io) API price); Qwen3.5 Plus costs $0.40 input / $2.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.341 per million tokens for Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct versus $0.525 for MiniMax-M2.5 (1.5× as much) and $0.90 for Qwen3.5 Plus (2.6× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 Plus scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 (#65 of 148), MiniMax-M2.5 146.7 (#66 of 148) and Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 129.7 (#126 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (144.6–148.1 vs 142.3–147.9), so treat the gap as small.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3.5 Plus, Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct and MiniMax-M2.5 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.5 Plus leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct has the largest context window at 10,000,000 tokens, against 1,000,000 for Qwen3.5 Plus and 204,800 for MiniMax-M2.5. Maximum output per response: Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536, Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct up to 16,384, MiniMax-M2.5 up to 131,072 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Qwen3.5 Plus accepts text, images and video; Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct accepts text and images; MiniMax-M2.5 accepts text. Qwen3.5 Plus handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct and MiniMax-M2.5 publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen3.5 Plus is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the newest, released Feb 16, 2026. MiniMax-M2.5 came out Feb 12, 2026; Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct came out Apr 5, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen3.5 Plus Apr 2025, Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct Aug 2024.

How do you decide the winner?

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

Related comparisons