MiniMax M3.1 Flash vs DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash

Official MiniMax M3.1 Flash blog figure used to identify the 2026-10 weight release — MiniMax M3.1 Flash research blog figure. Source · License: MiniMax product image.

Official DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash agentic benchmark figure from the original Hugging Face card — DeepSeek-AI model card. Source · License: MIT.

Verdict. Pick DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 if you want ungated MIT multimodal weights (552B backbone, 8B/16B active, 1M context). Pick MiniMax M3.1 Flash if you want the MiniMax 428B/23B multimodal MoE and can accept the MiniMax Community License (attribution plus a USD 20 million yearly-revenue authorization trigger). MiniMax’s own card table versus Flash-1017 is self-reported, not a forkalt ranking. We have no sourced bake-off.

Compare MiniMax M3.1 Flash and DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash.

Dimension	MiniMax M3.1 Flash	DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash	Source
License	MiniMax Community License (SPDX other; attribution + $20M revenue trigger)	MIT (1017 LICENSE + README)	Official LICENSE files (2026-10-24 / 2026-10-21)
Gating	No	No	Hugging Face API
Developer	MiniMax	DeepSeek-AI	Official cards
Parameters (vendor README)	~428B total / 23B activated	552B backbone; 8B prefill / 16B decode	Official READMEs
Modalities	Text + image + video in, text out	Images + text in, text out	Official cards
Context length	1,000,000 tokens	1M tokens	Official cards
Hugging Face likes	259 (2026-10-24)	1,970 on -1017; 4,674 on original Flash (2026-10-21)	Hugging Face API
usedStorage	252,429,151,663 bytes (~235 GiB)	510,296,920,807 bytes on 1017 (~475 GiB)	Hugging Face API
DeepSWE v1.1 (vendor tables)	73.7 (MiniMax card)	77.0 (1017 card)	Official cards; self-reported
Quality vs ChatGPT	Not independently tested	Not independently tested	n/a

When to choose which

Permissive MIT weights: DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash — MIT versus MiniMax Community License attribution and revenue trigger. Not legal advice.
Video-in plus image-in (card modalities): MiniMax M3.1 Flash — Flash-1017 card we quote is image-text-to-text. Not a quality score.
October 2026 MiniMax point release: MiniMax M3.1 Flash — 1017 is a different family. Weights last modified 2026-10-23 on the MiniMax card.

Read the entity pages: MiniMax M3.1 Flash and DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash (1017 checkpoint). Both are listed on ChatGPT alternatives and closed LLM APIs.

Why this comparison exists

MiniMax opened MiniMax-M3.1-Flash weights on Hugging Face (card last modified 2026-10-23). The MiniMax README prints a table that names DeepSeek V4.1 Flash-1017, the MIT checkpoint this site already identifies. That table is vendor / self-reported. It is not a forkalt ranking.

Sourced snapshot (2026-10-24)

Field	MiniMax M3.1 Flash	DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017
Host	huggingface.co/MiniMaxAI/MiniMax-M3.1-Flash (not gated)	huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 (not gated)
HF likes / downloads	259 / 1,096	1,970 / 27,737 (2026-10-21)
License	MiniMax Community License (SPDX other)	MIT
Size (README)	~428B / 23B	552B backbone; 8B/16B active
Job	Text + image + video in, text out	Images + text in, text out
Context	1M	1M
usedStorage	~235 GiB	~475 GiB
Quality vs ChatGPT	Not independently tested	Not independently tested

MiniMax card self-reported rows that name 1017 (copied; blanks stay blank):

Benchmark	MiniMax M3.1 Flash	Flash-1017 (on MiniMax card)
Automation-Bench v1.0.6	62.8	60.5
Terminal Bench 4.0	38.1	42.3
DeepSWE v1.1	73.7	77.0
NL2Repo-Bench	61.2	68.2
BabyVision (with tools)	91.0	92.5
HLE (without tools)	43.4	42.6

forkalt has not reproduced any row.

License

MiniMax: Community License. Commercial Use needs “Built with MiniMax M3.1-Flash”. Yearly revenue over USD 20 million needs prior written authorization. Details on the LICENSE file.

DeepSeek: MIT on the 1017 LICENSE and the README sentence that the repository and weights are MIT.

Not legal advice.

How to choose

Need MIT Flash weights and the 1017 point release: DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash. Official engine: DeepInfer (DeepInfer vs vLLM).
Need MiniMax’s 428B/23B multimodal MoE and can live with the Community License: MiniMax M3.1 Flash.
Need a compact Apache-2.0 preview MoE: Raon-1-mini.
Need 2.8T-class open multimodal and the Kimi K3 License: Kimi K3 — Flash vs Kimi K3.

FAQ

Did MiniMax beat DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017?

The MiniMax card prints a self-reported table that names DeepSeek V4.1 Flash-1017. Example copied rows: Automation-Bench 62.8 vs 60.5; DeepSWE v1.1 73.7 vs 77.0; NL2Repo-Bench 61.2 vs 68.2; HLE (no tools) 43.4 vs 42.6. Those are vendor numbers, not a forkalt test. Several 1017 cells on that table are blank.

Which license is more permissive?

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 is MIT. MiniMax Community License adds Commercial Use attribution (“Built with MiniMax M3.1-Flash”) and a USD 20 million yearly-revenue authorization trigger. Not legal advice.

Can I run both locally?

Both publish ungated weight hosts. MiniMax usedStorage is ~235 GiB; 1017 is ~475 GiB. Datacenter-class. VRAM not independently measured.

Does either replace ChatGPT?

No sourced bake-off against ChatGPT on this site.

Sources & verification

Last verified 2026-10-24 · Last updated 2026-10-24· Edited by forkalt editors · Editorial policy

License notes are not legal advice. Read the original LICENSE. Trademark & disclaimer.