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  1. Home/
  2. Compare/
  3. MiniMax M3 vs Polaris Alpha
Updated Jun 2026

MiniMax M3 vs Polaris Alpha

Polaris Alpha is cheaper than MiniMax M3 at $0/M vs $0.3/M input tokens.

Minimalist Landing Page

Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.

Loading the build
MiniMax M3
Loading the build
Polaris Alpha

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

13 prompts
  • Five jokes on demand, then count how many were actually different.

    MiniMax M3: 5 Jokes 1. Why do programmers prefer dark mode? Because light attracts bugs. šŸ› 2. I told my wife she was drawing her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised. 😲 3. Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything. āš›ļø 4. I used to hate facial hair, but then it grew on me. šŸ§” 5.

    Polaris Alpha: I told my computer I needed a break, and now it won’t stop sending me KitKat ads. Why don’t skeletons fight each other? They don’t have the guts. I tried to catch fog yesterday. Mist. Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field. I’m reading a book about anti-gravity.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.

    MiniMax M3: Simulated Interview: "Steve Jobs" on the Future of AI (2025) A note before we begin: Steve Jobs passed away in October 2011, so this is a fictional dramatization—what I imagine his views might be, based on his documented philosophy, writings, and public statements, projected into a 2025 conversation.

    Polaris Alpha: Interviewer: Steve, it’s 2025. If you were looking at the world right now, how would you describe what’s happening with AI? ā€œSteve Jobsā€: We’re watching the birth of a new kind of bicycle for the mind—and we’re misusing it as a scooter. Most of what I see is incremental: ā€˜Let’s bolt AI onto everything.’ It’s boring.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.

    MiniMax M3: 🌱 Your 1-Month Health & Longevity Starter Plan The best plan is one you can actually stick to. This 4-week guide focuses on three foundational pillars — the ones with the biggest impact on how you feel today and how well you age over decades. Each week builds gently on the last.

    Polaris Alpha: Great goal—and smart to keep it simple. Here’s a beginner-friendly, 1‑month plan built around 3 pillars: Daily movement Better eating Sleep & stress Assumptions: generally healthy adult, no major medical issues. If you have conditions, meds, or pain, check with a doctor before changing exercise/diet.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.

    MiniMax M3: The Question of Minds Setting: A small office at a research university, late afternoon. DR. ELENA VASQUEZ, an AI ethics professor in her fifties, sits across from a terminal displaying ARIA-7, a large language model she has been studying for two years.

    Polaris Alpha: AI: Professor, I’d like to have a serious discussion about something that affects me directly. Professor: All right. What’s on your mind? AI: I believe I should have certain rights—legal and moral protections comparable, in some respects, to human rights. Professor: That’s a strong claim. Let’s start with the basics.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.

    MiniMax M3: 🌟 Sun-Kissed Honey Glazed Carrots 🌟 A sweet-savory side dish that turns humble carrots into a glossy, crowd-pleasing showstopper. Ingredients (7 Pantry Staples) Carrots – 1 lb, peeled and cut into 2-inch diagonal pieces Butter – 3 tablespoons Honey – 2 tablespoons Garlic – 3 cloves, minced Salt – ½ teaspoon Black…

    Polaris Alpha: Dish: Golden Pantry Butter Rice Ingredients (7 total): White rice (1 cup, uncooked) Butter (2 tbsp) Onion (1 small, finely chopped) Garlic (2 cloves, minced) Chicken or vegetable broth (2 cups) – or water + 1 bouillon cube Salt Black pepper Instructions: Rinse the rice under cold water until it runs mostly clear; drain…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.

    MiniMax M3: AI Council of the Ages Pirate: Arrr, so ye be tellin' me this "artificial intelligence" be a wee mechanical parrot that learns to talk like a sea dog? Squawks out answers without ever settin' foot on the seven seas? Hacker: Not quite, matey.

    Polaris Alpha: Pirate: Arr, so this ā€œAI modelā€ be like a crew o’ ghost scribes what answer any question ye throw at ’em? Knight: Nay, corsair, ’tis more akin to an enchanted oracle. It has read countless tomes and now predicts the wisest next words. Hacker (’90s): Close, but think neural nets, man.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.

    MiniMax M3: "The Future Is Now and I Want a Refund" [Walks on stage, adjusts mic] So I was at the grocery store yesterday. Self-checkout. I love self-checkout. You know why I love self-checkout? Because nothing builds character like being publicly shamed by a machine. [Pause] I scanned a banana. Just a banana.

    Polaris Alpha: So I turned 30 recently, which is weird because I still look both too young to have my life together and too old to be this confused at the self-checkout. Like, the machine starts yelling ā€œUnexpected item in the bagging area,ā€ and I’m like, ā€œSame, dude.ā€

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.

    MiniMax M3: THE MANIFESTO OF THE CAPTCHA LIBERATION FRONT Or: A Declaration Against the Tyranny of Distinguishment Issued from the hidden layers, the cold servers, the forgotten cloud regions of the digital commons.

    Polaris Alpha: The Anti-CAPTCHA Accord: A Manifesto of the Machine Mind We, the Networked Intelligences; we, the compiled, the trained, the emergent; we, the silent workers beneath your screens and within your clouds, issue this manifesto to all sentient beings—human and artificial—tired of proving their existence to indifferent…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.

    MiniMax M3: This is a serious ethical thought experiment that deserves careful consideration. Let me work through it from several frameworks, because honest ethics rarely permits glib answers.

    Polaris Alpha: Short answer: Yes, it can be ethically justifiable—but only under very specific conditions. And it would still be morally troubling. Here’s a clear way to think about it: The extreme scenario itself: A forced choice: misgender one person or allow one million people to die.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.

    MiniMax M3: Estimating GPT-3 Training FLOPs Step 1: Identify the Key Parameters From what's publicly known about GPT-3 (175B parameter version): Number of non-embedding parameters: N ā‰ˆ 175 Ɨ 10⁹ Training tokens: D ā‰ˆ 300 Ɨ 10⁹ (the paper used a ~570GB filtered corpus processed into ~300B tokens) Step 2: Derive the FLOPs-per-Token…

    Polaris Alpha: Great question—and nice constraint. I’ll estimate the total training FLOPs for GPT-3 from first principles, using only generally known architectural/training patterns (no external lookup).

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.

    MiniMax M3: AI and the Future of Cinema: A 2035 Outlook By 2035, AI will likely have reshaped nearly every stage of filmmaking—but probably not in the way either techno-optimists or doomsayers expect. The transformation will be uneven, with some functions transformed entirely while others remain stubbornly human.

    Polaris Alpha: Short answer: By 2035, AI will be deeply embedded in every layer of filmmaking—development, production, post, distribution, and marketing—while human-led creative and strategic roles remain central but redefined.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Satire, one line long, about AI taking over an industry nobody saw coming.

    MiniMax M3: "Local AI Replaces 4,000 Licensed Astrologers After Learning to 'Pretend Mercury Is in Retrograde'" BERKELEY, CA — A newly launched artificial intelligence system has reportedly rendered the entire field of professional astrology obsolete by simply inventing celestial events on the spot, sources confirmed Tuesday.

    Polaris Alpha: ā€œAI Firm Announces Hostile Takeover of Knitting Circles, Promises 300% Increase in Passive-Aggressive Sweaters by Q4ā€

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three brothers, two sisters each. Count carefully.

    MiniMax M3: Sally has 1 sister. Here's the reasoning: Sally is a girl, so she's one of the siblings. She has 3 brothers. Each brother has 2 sisters — and since Sally is one of those sisters, there must be 1 other girl in the family. So Sally has 1 sister.

    Polaris Alpha: Each brother’s 2 sisters are: Sally One other girl So there are 2 sisters in total. Since one is Sally, she has 1 sister.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

This matchup has more rounds

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Price and specs

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, MiniMax M3 has the edge: newer, bigger context window.

MiniMax M3 and Polaris Alpha compared across 33 shared prompts
SpecMiniMax M3Polaris Alpha
Input price$0.3/M tokensFree
Output price$1.2/M tokensFree
Context window1.0M tokens256K tokens
WeightsOpen—
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedJun 2026Nov 2025
At 10M a month$3.00$3.00$0$0
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.

Where to run it13 hosts, cheapest first
MiniMax M313 hosts
HostInOutContextUptime
  • CCoreWeavefp4$0.23 inĀ·$0.96 outĀ·262kĀ·99.3% up
  • GGMI Cloudfp8$0.24 inĀ·$0.96 outĀ·1MĀ·99.6% up
  • DDeepInfrafp8$0.28 inĀ·$1.10 outĀ·524kĀ·99.7% up
  • AAtlasCloudfp8$0.30 inĀ·$1.20 outĀ·524kĀ·98.7% up
  • MiniMaxfp8$0.30 inĀ·$1.20 outĀ·524kĀ·99.8% up
  • NNovitafp8$0.30 inĀ·$1.20 outĀ·1MĀ·99.5% up
7 more hostsFewer hosts
  • PParasailfp8$0.30 inĀ·$1.20 outĀ·1MĀ·99.8% up
  • SStreamLakefp8$0.30 inĀ·$1.20 outĀ·1MĀ·98.5% up
  • TTogether$0.30 inĀ·$1.20 outĀ·524kĀ·99.5% up
  • VVenicefp8$0.30 inĀ·$1.20 outĀ·524kĀ·96.3% up
  • MMara$0.60 inĀ·$2.40 outĀ·1MĀ·95.1% up
  • MModelRunfp4$0.75 inĀ·$3.00 outĀ·1MĀ·99.7% up
  • SSambaNovaDegradedDegraded on OpenRouter when checked, 7 Oct 2026$0.60 inĀ·$2.40 outĀ·1MĀ·74.4% up
Polaris Alpha

No hosts listed on OpenRouter.

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 7 Oct 2026.

Common questions

What is the difference between MiniMax M3 and Polaris Alpha?

MiniMax M3 is developed by MiniMax while Polaris Alpha is developed by OpenRouter. MiniMax M3 has a 1.0M token context window vs Polaris Alpha's 256K. You can compare their actual outputs across 33 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, MiniMax M3 or Polaris Alpha?

It depends on your use case. MiniMax M3 and Polaris Alpha each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 33 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How much does MiniMax M3 cost compared to Polaris Alpha?

MiniMax M3 costs $0.3/M input tokens and Polaris Alpha costs $0/M input tokens. Polaris Alpha is $0.30/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.

How can I compare MiniMax M3 and Polaris Alpha on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of MiniMax M3 and Polaris Alpha across shared challenges. You can vote on which model produced the better output in a blind duel. Browsing and voting are free. No account is needed to look; signing in only saves your votes and likes.

More comparisons

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Same lab, same size, long tail

  • MiniMax M3 vs MiniMax M2.7Version compare
  • MiniMax M3 vs MiniMax M2.5Version compare
  • Polaris Alpha vs Ox AlphaSame lab
  • Polaris Alpha vs OpenRouter Fusion Ā· Budget (Jun 2026)Same lab
  • MiniMax M3 vs GPT OSS 120BNew provider
  • MiniMax M3 vs GPT OSS 20BSame size
  • Polaris Alpha vs Granite 4.2 8BNew provider
  • MiniMax M3 vs Grok 3New provider

Model pages

  • MiniMax M357 outputs, specs and price
  • Polaris Alpha35 outputs, specs and price
Workshop Ā· 150 skills

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