MiniMax-M2.1 vs. GLM-5

MiniMax-M2.1 is a high-performance, open-source agentic language model designed for modern development and automation needs. It was created to challenge the idea that advanced AI agents must remain proprietary. The model is optimized for software engineering, tool usage, and long-horizon reasoning tasks. MiniMax-M2.1 performs strongly in multilingual coding and cross-platform development scenarios. It supports building autonomous agents capable of executing complex, multi-step workflows. Developers can deploy the model locally, ensuring full control over data and execution. The architecture emphasizes robustness, consistency, and instruction accuracy. MiniMax-M2.1 demonstrates competitive results across industry-standard coding and agent benchmarks. It generalizes well across different agent frameworks and inference engines. The model is suitable for full-stack application development, automation, and AI-assisted engineering. Open weights allow experimentation, fine-tuning, and research. MiniMax-M2.1 provides a powerful foundation for the next generation of intelligent agents.

GLM-5 is Z.ai’s most advanced open-source model to date, purpose-built for complex systems engineering, long-horizon planning, and autonomous agent workflows. Building on the foundation of GLM-4.5, it dramatically scales both total parameters and pre-training data while increasing active parameter efficiency. The integration of DeepSeek Sparse Attention allows GLM-5 to maintain strong long-context reasoning capabilities while reducing deployment costs. To improve post-training performance, Z.ai developed slime, an asynchronous reinforcement learning infrastructure that significantly boosts training throughput and iteration speed. As a result, GLM-5 achieves top-tier performance among open-source models across reasoning, coding, and general agent benchmarks. It demonstrates exceptional strength in long-term operational simulations, including leading results on Vending Bench 2, where it manages a year-long simulated business with strong financial outcomes. In coding evaluations such as SWE-bench and Terminal-Bench 2.0, GLM-5 delivers competitive results that narrow the gap with proprietary frontier systems. The model is fully open-sourced under the MIT License and available through Hugging Face, ModelScope, and Z.ai’s developer platforms. Developers can deploy GLM-5 locally using inference frameworks like vLLM and SGLang, including support for non-NVIDIA hardware through optimization and quantization techniques. Through Z.ai, users can access both Chat Mode for fast interactions and Agent Mode for tool-augmented, multi-step task execution. GLM-5 also enables structured document generation, producing ready-to-use .docx, .pdf, and .xlsx files for business and academic workflows. With compatibility across coding agents and cross-application automation frameworks, GLM-5 moves foundation models from conversational assistants toward full-scale work engines.