MiniMax M2.7 vs Muse Spark 1.3

MiniMax · China  |  Meta · US · Updated June 2026

Quick verdict

Pick MiniMax M2.7 for agentic and terminal coding well above its price tier (57.0 on terminal-bench 2, vendor-reported) or independently ranked 14th of 97 on the artificial analysis intelligence index. Pick Muse Spark 1.3 for agentic coding with ~20% fewer tool calls and ~25% fewer tokens than muse spark 1.2 or deepswe v1.1 long-horizon software engineering (75.4). Choose MiniMax M2.7 if you need self-hosting or data privacy; Muse Spark 1.3 if you want a managed API.

MiniMax M2.7 (MiniMax, China) and Muse Spark 1.3 (Meta, US) line up two different AI ecosystems against each other — a comparison that is as much about cost philosophy and openness as raw capability. MiniMax M2.7 is a cheap open-weight agentic coder with near-frontier terminal scores — held back by a non-commercial licence and non-standard benchmarks. Muse Spark 1.3 is meta's September 2, 2026 agentic-coding model update, cutting tool calls and token usage versus Muse Spark 1.2 while its highest-reasoning mode remains gated for safety review. They diverge most on price, context window and open vs. closed weights — each quantified below from the models' real specs.

Key differences at a glance

Side-by-side specs

SpecMiniMax M2.7Muse Spark 1.3
ProviderMiniMax (China) Meta (US)
ReleasedMarch 18, 2026 September 2, 2026
Context window205K (~307 pages) 1M tokens (~1,500 pages)
Price (in/out)$0.3/$1.2 per 1M tokens $1.25/$4.25 per 1M tokens
Open weight?Yes — self-hostable No — API only
Modalitiestext, code text, image, video
SWE-Bench VerifiedNot published Not published
MRCR v2 @ 1MNot published 98.1%

Who wins what

Agentic and terminal coding well above its price tier (57.0 on Terminal-Bench 2, vendor-reported)

MiniMax M2.7

At $0.3/$1.2 per 1M tokens it undercuts Muse Spark 1.3 ($1.25/$4.25 per 1M tokens), and that gap compounds at volume.

Independently ranked 14th of 97 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index

MiniMax M2.7

A cheap open-weight agentic coder with near-frontier terminal scores — held back by a non-commercial licence and non-standard benchmarks — and it runs cheaper at $0.3/$1.2 per 1M tokens.

Sparse mixture-of-experts — roughly 230B total but only ~10B active, so it runs on local hardware

MiniMax M2.7

Open weights make this possible at all — Muse Spark 1.3 is API-only, so it cannot leave the vendor's servers.

Agentic coding with ~20% fewer tool calls and ~25% fewer tokens than Muse Spark 1.2

Muse Spark 1.3

Its 1M tokens window holds about 4.9× more than MiniMax M2.7's 205K in a single prompt.

DeepSWE v1.1 long-horizon software engineering (75.4)

Muse Spark 1.3

Meta's September 2, 2026 agentic-coding model update, cutting tool calls and token usage versus Muse Spark 1.2 while its highest-reasoning mode remains gated for safety review — and it carries the larger 1M tokens context.

Near-perfect long-context retrieval (MRCR v2 512K-1M: 98.1)

Muse Spark 1.3

MiniMax M2.7 is comparatively weak here — already superseded internally by M3, and its 205K context is small against 1M-class rivals

Lowest cost at scale

MiniMax M2.7

At $0.3/$1.2 per 1M tokens, it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.

Largest single-prompt input

Muse Spark 1.3

Its 1M tokens window is about 4.9× larger than MiniMax M2.7's 205K, fitting roughly 1,500 pages in one prompt.

Which should you pick?

A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume

MiniMax M2.7

At $0.3/$1.2 per 1M tokens it undercuts Muse Spark 1.3, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.

Someone analysing very long documents or codebases

Muse Spark 1.3

Larger 1M tokens window fits more in one prompt.

A team with data-privacy or self-hosting needs

MiniMax M2.7

Open weights let you run it on your own hardware; Muse Spark 1.3 is API-only.

Anyone whose priority is agentic and terminal coding well above its price tier (57.0 on terminal-bench 2, vendor-reported)

MiniMax M2.7

It is specifically built for that.

Anyone whose priority is agentic coding with ~20% fewer tool calls and ~25% fewer tokens than muse spark 1.2

Muse Spark 1.3

That is its strongest area.

An enterprise with regional data-residency rules

Muse Spark 1.3 or MiniMax M2.7

Origin (China vs US) affects where data is processed and which compliance regime applies — check the provider's terms for your region.

MiniMax M2.7: where it fits

A cheap open-weight agentic coder with near-frontier terminal scores — held back by a non-commercial licence and non-standard benchmarks. Released March 18, 2026 by MiniMax, it is built for agentic and terminal coding well above its price tier (57.0 on Terminal-Bench 2, vendor-reported), independently ranked 14th of 97 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, sparse mixture-of-experts — roughly 230B total but only ~10B active, so it runs on local hardware, and served by five separate hosts at uniform pricing, so there is no provider lock-in.

Its trade-offs are real: open weights but a NON-COMMERCIAL licence — commercial use requires prior written authorisation from MiniMax, and at least one major tracker still mislabels it as MIT, reports SWE-Bench Pro instead of the standard Verified set, which blocks like-for-like comparison, and already superseded internally by M3, and its 205K context is small against 1M-class rivals. At $0.3 in / $1.2 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.

Muse Spark 1.3: where it fits

Meta's September 2, 2026 agentic-coding model update, cutting tool calls and token usage versus Muse Spark 1.2 while its highest-reasoning mode remains gated for safety review. Released September 2, 2026 by Meta, it is built for agentic coding with ~20% fewer tool calls and ~25% fewer tokens than Muse Spark 1.2, deepSWE v1.1 long-horizon software engineering (75.4), near-perfect long-context retrieval (MRCR v2 512K-1M: 98.1), and ranks third overall on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (score 61, xhigh variant; the limited-preview max variant scores 62) - behind only Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Opus 5.

Its trade-offs: strongest 'max' reasoning configuration still gated pending additional safety testing, not yet open-weight, despite Meta roadmapping a future Muse Spark weights release, and no official SWE-bench Verified score published. At $1.25 in / $4.25 out per million tokens, it sits in the mid price band.

The bottom line for this matchup

The defining split here is open vs. closed. MiniMax M2.7 gives you weights you control — self-host it, fine-tune it, keep data in-house, pay only for hardware. Muse Spark 1.3 gives you a managed, always-updated API with no infrastructure to run. Teams with GPUs, privacy requirements, or huge volume often favour the open model; teams that want zero ops and the latest capabilities favour the closed one. Capability is close enough that this operational question, not the benchmark, usually decides it.

Want both MiniMax M2.7 and Muse Spark 1.3 without two subscriptions? LumiChats gives you these plus 40+ models under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day) — draft with one, cross-check with the other.

See pricing

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax M2.7 or Muse Spark 1.3 better for coding?

Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for either model, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, MiniMax M2.7 leans toward agentic and terminal coding well above its price tier (57.0 on terminal-bench 2, vendor-reported) while Muse Spark 1.3 leans toward agentic coding with ~20% fewer tool calls and ~25% fewer tokens than muse spark 1.2, and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.

Which is cheaper, MiniMax M2.7 or Muse Spark 1.3?

MiniMax M2.7 is open-weight, so self-hosting means no per-token fee (you pay for hardware instead), while Muse Spark 1.3 is API-metered at $1.25/$4.25 per 1M tokens. For most teams without GPUs, the API model is cheaper to start; at very high volume, self-hosting can win.

Which has the bigger context window?

Muse Spark 1.3 — 1M tokens vs 205K, about 4.9× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.

Can I use both MiniMax M2.7 and Muse Spark 1.3 together?

Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you MiniMax M2.7, Muse Spark 1.3 and 40+ others under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day), so you can draft with one and cross-check with the other instead of buying two subscriptions.

Which is newer, MiniMax M2.7 or Muse Spark 1.3?

Muse Spark 1.3 — released September 2, 2026, about 6 months after MiniMax M2.7.

Related comparisons

Specifications and benchmarks reflect publicly reported figures as of June 2026 and may change as providers release updates. Always verify on your own workload.