Models / Compare /MiniMax M2.5 vs GLM 5
Head to head
MiniMax M2.5 vs GLM 5
Compared on live catalog data — pricing synced daily, benchmark scores with provenance.
The short version
- MiniMax M2.5 is cheaper to run hosted: $0.90/M output vs $2.55/M for GLM 5 (2.8× difference at the cheapest tracked provider).
- MiniMax M2.5 has downloadable weights (OPEN*) so you can self-host it; we hold no downloadable copy of GLM 5, so it runs through a provider's API.
- GLM 5 scores 1497.4049 on Arena Coding vs 1444.2371 for MiniMax M2.5.
- GLM 5 scores 1446.2097 on Arena Creative Writing vs 1357.2777 for MiniMax M2.5.
| Spec | ||
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | MiniMax | Z.AI |
| Parameters | 229B | 754B |
| 205K | 205K | |
| Weights | OPEN* | OPEN |
| License | Custom licence | MIT License |
| Modality | text->text | text->text |
| Released | Feb 12, 2026 | Feb 11, 2026 |
| 144.2 GBest | 475.3 GBest | |
| Cheapest hosted | $0.15 / $0.90 per 1M (OpenRouter) | $0.95 / $2.55 per 1M (OpenRouter) |
| Tracked providers | 17 | 17 |
MiniMax M2.5 — our take
MiniMax M2.5 is a large text-only model with 228.7 billion parameters, released in early 2026. Its standout feature is a coding score that sits well above its general chat rating, though a custom restricted licence and lack of multimodal support limit where it fits.
full breakdown →GLM 5 — our take
GLM 5 is a large downloadable text model from Z.AI with a permissive MIT licence and a 204,800-token request limit. It scores well on coding leaderboards and is available from nine different providers, though its total parameter count may overstate its actual per-token workload.
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