The closest alternative to Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image Preview) is Gemini 3.5 Flash — comparable intelligence (43.3 vs —); for a cheaper option, MiniMax M3 runs $0.300/M vs $0.500/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 Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image Preview), with an Intelligence Index of 43.3 (Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image Preview) scores —) at $1.50 per million input tokens.
Yes — MiniMax M3 costs $0.300 per million input tokens versus $0.500 for Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image Preview), while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image Preview) — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.