The closest alternative to Gemini 2.5 Flash is Gemini 3.5 Flash — comparable intelligence (43.3 vs —); for a cheaper option, MiniMax M2.7 runs $0.250/M vs $0.300/M; for more speed, Morph V3 Large hits 2.6k t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is MiniMax M3.
Gemini 3.5 Flash is the closest alternative to Gemini 2.5 Flash, with an Intelligence Index of 43.3 (Gemini 2.5 Flash scores —) at $1.50 per million input tokens.
Yes — MiniMax M2.7 costs $0.250 per million input tokens versus $0.300 for Gemini 2.5 Flash, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to Gemini 2.5 Flash — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.