Model comparison
Amazon Nova Lite vs MiniMax-M2
MiniMax-M2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.9 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index. Amazon Nova Lite costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 15 shared benchmarks.
MiniMaxSummary
- They share 15 benchmarks with published results for both. Amazon Nova Lite scores higher in 0 categories and MiniMax-M2 in 8 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where MiniMax-M2 leads 53.3 to 42.3.
- Amazon Nova Lite is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.24 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.
- Amazon Nova Lite accepts more context: 300K tokens versus 205K.
- MiniMax-M2 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 31.4 | 36.9 |
| Released | 2024-12-03 | 2025-10-27 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 300K | 205K |
| Max output | 10K | 131K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.06 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.24 | $1.20 |
| Results tracked | 34 | 21 |
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Category by category
Coding MiniMax-M2 leads
Amazon Nova Lite: 32.0 (#266), MiniMax-M2: 39.1 (#151)
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1239 | 1370 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 61% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1297 |
| LiveBench Coding | 27.5% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 236.25 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Amazon Nova Lite: —, MiniMax-M2: 24.9 (#102)
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 30% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 160.6 |
Reasoning Too close to call
Amazon Nova Lite: 18.5 (#257), MiniMax-M2: 18.6 (#256)
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1220 | 1357 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 57.8% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 14.8% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 36.7% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 37.2% | — |
| LiveBench | 36.4% | — |
Math MiniMax-M2 leads
Amazon Nova Lite: 25.8 (#243), MiniMax-M2: 34.6 (#158)
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1227 | 1350 |
| Omni-MATH | 23.3% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 36.7% | — |
Knowledge MiniMax-M2 leads
Amazon Nova Lite: 26.0 (#254), MiniMax-M2: 36.3 (#160)
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1201 | 1336 |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 3.6% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 60% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 6.1% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 39.7% | — |
| MMLU | 77% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Amazon Nova Lite: 25.0 (#118), MiniMax-M2: —
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 990 | — |
Multilingual MiniMax-M2 leads
Amazon Nova Lite: 38.2 (#227), MiniMax-M2: 45.6 (#165)
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1208 | 1314 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1225 | 1367 |
| LMArena French | 1237 | 1336 |
| LMArena German | 1229 | 1366 |
| LMArena Russian | 1216 | 1332 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1225 | 1326 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1153 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1153 | — |
Instruction Following MiniMax-M2 leads
Amazon Nova Lite: 59.6 (#250), MiniMax-M2: 70.4 (#160)
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1205 | 1329 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 54.1% | — |
| IFEval | 77.6% | — |
Long Context MiniMax-M2 leads
Amazon Nova Lite: 37.4 (#212), MiniMax-M2: 40.5 (#148)
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1234 | 1332 |
Writing & Preference MiniMax-M2 leads
Amazon Nova Lite: 42.3 (#232), MiniMax-M2: 53.3 (#157)
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1229 | 1340 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1197 | 1288 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1199 | 1362 |
| WildBench | 75% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 25.9% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Amazon Nova Lite better than MiniMax-M2?
MiniMax-M2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.9 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index. Amazon Nova Lite costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Amazon Nova Lite or MiniMax-M2?
Amazon Nova Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.24 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.
Is Amazon Nova Lite or MiniMax-M2 better for coding?
MiniMax-M2 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.1 versus 32.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Amazon Nova Lite does, with 300K tokens against 205K.
How many benchmarks do Amazon Nova Lite and MiniMax-M2 share?
15 benchmarks have published results for both models. Amazon Nova Lite has 34 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2 has 21.