The closest alternative to MiniMax M2.1 is DeepSeek V4 Pro — comparable intelligence (39.3 vs 39.4); for a cheaper option, MiniMax M2.7 runs $0.250/M vs $0.290/M; for more speed, gpt-oss-120b (free) hits 554 t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is MiniMax M3.
DeepSeek V4 Pro is the closest alternative to MiniMax M2.1, with an Intelligence Index of 39.3 (MiniMax M2.1 scores 39.4) at $0.435 per million input tokens.
Yes — MiniMax M2.7 costs $0.250 per million input tokens versus $0.290 for MiniMax M2.1, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to MiniMax M2.1 — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.