The closest alternative to Qwen3 Max Thinking is MiniMax M2.1 — comparable intelligence (39.4 vs 39.8); for a cheaper option, MiniMax M3 runs $0.300/M vs $0.780/M; for more speed, gpt-oss-120b (free) hits 554 t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is MiniMax M3.
MiniMax M2.1 is the closest alternative to Qwen3 Max Thinking, with an Intelligence Index of 39.4 (Qwen3 Max Thinking scores 39.8) at $0.290 per million input tokens.
Yes — MiniMax M3 costs $0.300 per million input tokens versus $0.780 for Qwen3 Max Thinking, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to Qwen3 Max Thinking — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.