MiniMax-M3 vs Claude Opus 4.8
Benchmark Performance
Available Benchmarks
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Document Arenadocument-2026-07-30-011508720696 · arena_rating · leader | 1,434.8298% of row best · rating · minimax-m3; 95% CI [1426.45297239, 1443.17975284]; votes 6263; rank 26 | 1,468.90100% of row best · rating · claude-opus-4-8; 95% CI [1460.58009276, 1477.22476172]; votes 8193; rank 16 |
| LMArena Text Arenatext-2026-09-01-011508720696 · arena_rating · leader | 1,435.2099% of row best · rating · minimax-m3; 95% CI [1430.86827835, 1439.53977389]; votes 44544; rank 77 | 1,451.98100% of row best · rating · claude-opus-4-8; 95% CI [1447.69484580, 1456.25837678]; votes 49123; rank 38 |
| LMArena Vision Arenavision-2026-08-27-011508720696 · arena_rating · leader | 1,255.4297% of row best · rating · minimax-m3; 95% CI [1247.93588333, 1262.90862002]; votes 13390; rank 44 | 1,288.81100% of row best · rating · claude-opus-4-8; 95% CI [1281.38044914, 1296.24567110]; votes 13980; rank 23 |
| LiveBench2026-06-25 · overall · leader | 70.2687% of row best · percent · minimax-m3 · 15,530 output tokens / case | 81.18100% of row best · percent · claude-opus-4-8-max-effort · 24,171 output tokens / case |
| Overall ResultCounted from the protocol-matched rows above | 0 benchmark wins | 4 benchmark winsOverall lead |
Third-party benchmark Only like-for-like primary-publisher results are shown; raw scores, relative scores, configuration, and token spend remain visible.
Technical Differences
Side-by-Side Facts
| Field | MiniMax-M3 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | MiniMax | Anthropic |
| Family | Minimax M3 | Claude 4 8 |
| Model | MiniMax-M3 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| Version | MiniMax-M3 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| Lifecycle | active | active |
| Released | 2026-06-01 | 2026-05-28 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Unknown | 2026-01-01 |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
| Output modalities | Text | Text |
| Context window | 1,048,576 | 1,000,000 |
| Total parameters | 427,040,140,160 | Unknown |
| Active parameters | 23,000,000,000 | Unknown |
| License | other | Unknown |
| Open weights | Yes | No |
| API available | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No |
| Provider access | Deepinfra (Standard), Openrouter (Standard) | Anthropic (Standard), Deepinfra (Standard) |
| Capabilities | chat, generation, reasoning, tools | chat, generation, reasoning, tools |
14 comparable fields · 9 material differences · Pair passes the primary-source comparison gate
MiniMax-M3 Capabilities
Claude Opus 4.8 Capabilities
Internal Comparison Graph
Related Comparisons
| A | Pair | B | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
MiniMax-M3MiniMax | vs |  Hy4 previewTencent | cross-developer peerstext |
Claude Opus 4.8Anthropic | vs | Claude Opus 5Anthropic | family variantsimage, text |
Claude Fable 5Anthropic | vs | Claude Opus 4.8Anthropic | family variantsimage, text |
Claude Mythos 5.1Anthropic | vs | Claude Opus 4.8Anthropic | family variantsimage, text |
Claude Opus 4.8Anthropic | vs | Claude Sonnet 5Anthropic | family variantsimage, text |
MiniMax-M3MiniMax | vs |  Mistral-Small-4-119B-2603Mistral AI | cross-developer peersimage, text |
MiniMax-M3MiniMax | vs | cross-developer peersimage, text | |
MiniMax-M3MiniMax | vs | cross-developer peersimage, text | |
MiniMax-M3MiniMax | vs | Claude Fable 5Anthropic | cross-developer peersimage, text |
MiniMax-M3MiniMax | vs | Claude Opus 5Anthropic | cross-developer peersimage, text |
MiniMax-M3MiniMax | vs | Claude Sonnet 5Anthropic | cross-developer peersimage, text |
Claude Opus 4.8Anthropic | vs |  GPT-5.6 LunaOpenAI | cross-developer peersimage, text |
Primary Evidence
Sources and Freshness
Questions
MiniMax-M3 vs Claude Opus 4.8 FAQs
Is MiniMax-M3 or Claude Opus 4.8 better for coding?+
This comparison does not currently contain a protocol-matched coding benchmark for both MiniMax-M3 and Claude Opus 4.8, so Model Markets cannot name a coding leader from pricing, context size, or capability labels alone.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M3 or Claude Opus 4.8?+
MiniMax-M3 is $0.28 and Claude Opus 4.8 is $5.00 per million tokens, so MiniMax-M3 is cheaper on this metric. MiniMax-M3 is $1.10 and Claude Opus 4.8 is $25.00 per million tokens, so MiniMax-M3 is cheaper on this metric.
Which has a larger context window, MiniMax-M3 or Claude Opus 4.8?+
MiniMax-M3 has the larger sourced context window. MiniMax-M3 supports 1,048,576 and Claude Opus 4.8 supports 1,000,000.
Which performs better in benchmarks, MiniMax-M3 or Claude Opus 4.8?+
Claude Opus 4.8 leads the current overall benchmark count. The result uses 4 protocol-matched benchmarks from 2 publishers; it is not a universal quality score.
Can MiniMax-M3 or Claude Opus 4.8 be self-hosted?+
MiniMax-M3 is the only model in this pair currently marked as self-hostable. MiniMax-M3 is open weight; Claude Opus 4.8 is not marked open weight.
Can MiniMax-M3 and Claude Opus 4.8 understand images?+
MiniMax-M3 is documented with image input; Claude Opus 4.8 is documented with image input. This reflects supported input modalities, not vision quality.
Which can generate longer answers, MiniMax-M3 or Claude Opus 4.8?+
Neither has a larger sourced maximum output. MiniMax-M3 is — and Claude Opus 4.8 is 128,000.
Do MiniMax-M3 and Claude Opus 4.8 support reasoning and tool use?+
MiniMax-M3: reasoning, tool calling, and image input. Claude Opus 4.8: reasoning, tool calling, and image input. Feature support does not establish relative quality.
Which is available from more inference providers, MiniMax-M3 or Claude Opus 4.8?+
MiniMax-M3 has 2 sourced provider routes; Claude Opus 4.8 has 2, a tie.
Which offers better value, MiniMax-M3 or Claude Opus 4.8?+
There is no universal value winner. Compare the input and output prices above with the matched benchmark result for your workload: cheaper tokens can be offset by different quality, token usage, latency, or provider availability.