MiniMax M2.5 vs LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

MiniMax M2.5 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 59 to 33. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

MiniMax M2.5's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 76.1 against 42.3. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HumanEval, 65 to 17.

MiniMax M2.5 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.30 input / $1.20 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking is the reasoning model in the pair, while MiniMax M2.5 is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. MiniMax M2.5 gives you the larger context window at 128K, compared with 32K for LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking.

Quick Verdict

Pick MiniMax M2.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Agentic

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

53.4

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

34.1

51
Terminal-Bench 2.0
34
62
BrowseComp
37
50
OSWorld-Verified
32

Coding

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

38.7

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

8.2

65
HumanEval
17
45
SWE-bench Verified
10
35
LiveCodeBench
9
41
SWE-bench Pro
7

Multimodal & Grounded

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

62

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

32.4

57
MMMU-Pro
27
68
OfficeQA Pro
39

Reasoning

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

69.6

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

38.4

70
SimpleQA
29
68
MuSR
31
83
BBH
67
66
LongBench v2
39
69
MRCRv2
42

Knowledge

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

55.3

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

27

73
MMLU
27
72
GPQA
26
70
SuperGPQA
24
68
OpenBookQA
22
73
MMLU-Pro
51
10
HLE
2
66
FrontierScience
31

Instruction Following

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

85

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

72

85
IFEval
72

Multilingual

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

82.1

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

60.7

84
MGSM
62
81
MMLU-ProX
60

Mathematics

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

76.1

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

42.3

73
AIME 2023
28
75
AIME 2024
30
74
AIME 2025
29
69
HMMT Feb 2023
24
71
HMMT Feb 2024
26
70
HMMT Feb 2025
25
72
BRUMO 2025
27
81
MATH-500
61

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, MiniMax M2.5 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking?

MiniMax M2.5 is ahead overall, 59 to 33. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HumanEval, where the scores are 65 and 17.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, MiniMax M2.5 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 55.3 versus 27. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, MiniMax M2.5 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 38.7 versus 8.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, MiniMax M2.5 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 76.1 versus 42.3. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, MiniMax M2.5 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 69.6 versus 38.4. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, MiniMax M2.5 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 53.4 versus 34.1. Inside this category, BrowseComp is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, MiniMax M2.5 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 62 versus 32.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, MiniMax M2.5 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 85 versus 72. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, MiniMax M2.5 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.1 versus 60.7. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

Weekly LLM Benchmark Digest

Get notified when new models drop, benchmark scores change, or the leaderboard shifts. One email per week.

Free. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. We only store derived location metadata for consent routing.