The closest alternative to MiniMax M2 is Nemotron 3 Super (free) — comparable intelligence (36.0 vs 36.1); for a cheaper option, MiniMax M2.7 runs $0.250/M vs $0.255/M; for more speed, gpt-oss-120b (free) hits 554 t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is MiniMax M3.
Nemotron 3 Super (free) is the closest alternative to MiniMax M2, with an Intelligence Index of 36.0 (MiniMax M2 scores 36.1) at Free per million input tokens.
Yes — MiniMax M2.7 costs $0.250 per million input tokens versus $0.255 for MiniMax M2, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to MiniMax M2 — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.