# MiniMax API vs Muse Spark Open

> MiniMax scores 55.2 (C) to Muse Spark Open's 53.4 (D) for llm inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-10-19

MiniMax API scores 55.2 (C) on agent readiness against Muse Spark Open's 53.4 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Muse Spark Open leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth, payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do llm inference.

- MiniMax API: grade C, 55.2/100, rank #751 of 1175. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/minimax-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/minimax-api.json
- Muse Spark Open: grade D, 53.4/100, rank #805 of 1175. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/muse-spark-open.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/muse-spark-open.json
- Best model APIs and inference for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/inference/index.md
- All 436 models comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inference/index.md

## Which one, for what

### MiniMax API (C)

Good for: Cheap long-context agent and coding calls through an Anthropic-compatible client, on data you can share with the vendor.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 75 against 42
- Schema & documentation, 82 against 61
- Transparency & trust, 64 against 53

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: The terms let MiniMax use inputs and outputs to develop and improve its services, and no opt-out was found

### Muse Spark Open (D)

Good for: A team with a four-GPU Blackwell node, or two to four Mac Studios, that wants a 1M-token multimodal coding and agent model on its own hardware with no prompts leaving it.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 69 against 59
- Security & auth, 44 against 30
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 60 against 45

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it

Watch for: The NVFP4 checkpoint (about 537 GB) serves on four B300 GPUs and the BF16 one (about 1.65 TB) on eight


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | MiniMax API | Muse Spark Open | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 75 | 42 | MiniMax API +33 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 61 | MiniMax API +21 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 59 | 69 | Muse Spark Open +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 30 | 44 | Muse Spark Open +14 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 50 | Muse Spark Open +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 45 | 60 | Muse Spark Open +15 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 53 | MiniMax API +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **55.2 · C** | **53.4 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | MiniMax API | Muse Spark Open |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | MiniMax | Meta |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.minimax.io` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary API under MiniMax's platform terms. MiniMax-M3 weights are on Hugging Face under the MiniMax community licence | Muse Model Licence (source-available weights, not an OSI licence), free of charge with an attribution notice, a separate agreement with Meta before Model as a Service by a licensee group above $20M gross revenue, and the Muse Spark Open Usage Policy |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-19 | 2026-10-15 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read |  |
| Popularity | 493 stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.8/5 (4) | none |

## Verdicts

**MiniMax API.** M3.1 Flash costs $0.15 in and $0.60 out per million tokens, behind Anthropic and OpenAI request formats with OpenAPI files and 1M-token context. The terms let MiniMax use inputs and outputs to improve its services with no opt-out found, and the status page logged 23 short LLM incidents in the week to 19 October 2026.

**Muse Spark Open.** Muse Spark Open runs on the owner's hardware in seven runtimes, with OpenAI-compatible servers in vLLM and SGLang, standard tool calls, a 1M-token context and Meta's own serving docs. Serving the 537 GB NVFP4 checkpoint takes four B300 GPUs, Meta's download is gated by manual review, and the licence adds attribution and a revenue threshold for model resellers.

## Before you call either

### MiniMax API

1. Use the Anthropic-format base URL `https://api.minimax.io/anthropic` for tool calls. The OpenAI-format schema has no `tool_choice` or `response_format`
2. Set `output_config.effort` (or `reasoning_effort`) below `max` for routine calls. M3.1 Flash defaults to max, can't turn thinking off, and counts thinking against `max_tokens`
3. Don't rely on `stop_sequences` or `top_k`. The Anthropic-format endpoint ignores them
4. Back off on 429 and 529 yourself. No Retry-After header is documented
5. Use a pay-as-you-go key for production. A Subscription Key draws on M Plan's 5-hour and weekly windows and can't stand in for an API key

### Muse Spark Open

1. Start vLLM or SGLang with `--reasoning-parser muse --tool-call-parser muse` (vLLM also `--enable-auto-tool-choice`), or tool calls come back as raw text
2. Set `reasoning_effort` to `low` or `medium` for short tasks. The default is `xhigh`, reasoning can't be turned off, and other values return an error
3. Stop only on `<|eot|>` and end of text. Stopping on `<|eom|>` cuts off tool calls and final answers
4. Stream long generations and leave `max_tokens` room for reasoning, or `content` can come back empty with `finish_reason` `length`
5. Don't call Meta Model API for this model. Use a self-hosted server or a hosted provider's model string, such as `meta-models/muse-spark-open`

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, MiniMax API or Muse Spark Open?

MiniMax API scores 55.2 (C) on agent readiness against Muse Spark Open's 53.4 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Muse Spark Open leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth, payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

### Do MiniMax API and Muse Spark Open need an API key?

MiniMax API needs an API key. Muse Spark Open needs no key.

### Can an agent call MiniMax API and Muse Spark Open without installing anything?

MiniMax API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.minimax.io. No hosted endpoint is listed for Muse Spark Open.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/minimax-api-vs-muse-spark-open.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/minimax-api-vs-muse-spark-open.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "minimax-api", "b": "muse-spark-open"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare minimax-api muse-spark-open`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/minimax-api.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/muse-spark-open.json

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