Model comparison
Amazon Nova Lite vs Sonar
Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.8 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index. Amazon Nova Lite costs 9.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Sonar's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 7 shared benchmarks.
PerplexitySummary
- They share 7 benchmarks with published results for both. Amazon Nova Lite scores higher in 0 categories and Sonar in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in instruction following, where Sonar leads 71.5 to 59.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is LiveBench Instruction Following: 54.1% for Amazon Nova Lite and 76.2% for Sonar.
- Amazon Nova Lite is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.24 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $1 for Sonar.
- Amazon Nova Lite accepts more context: 300K tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Amazon Nova Lite | Sonar | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | Perplexity |
| Noometry Index | 31.4 | 37.8 |
| Released | 2024-12-03 | 2024-01-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 300K | 128K |
| Max output | 10K | 4K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.06 | $1 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.24 | $1 |
| Results tracked | 34 | 7 |
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Category by category
Coding Sonar leads
Amazon Nova Lite: 32.0 (#266), Sonar: 35.1 (#217)
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Coding | 27.5% | 35.1% |
| LMArena Coding | 1239 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 236.25 | — |
Reasoning Sonar leads
Amazon Nova Lite: 18.5 (#257), Sonar: 20.3 (#221)
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Reasoning | 36.7% | 46.3% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 37.2% | 37.9% |
| LiveBench | 36.4% | 46.9% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1220 | — |
Math Sonar leads
Amazon Nova Lite: 25.8 (#243), Sonar: 31.3 (#197)
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Math | 36.7% | 41.6% |
| Omni-MATH | 23.3% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1227 | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
Amazon Nova Lite: 26.0 (#254), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Humanity's Last Exam | 3.6% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 60% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 6.1% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 39.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1201 | — |
| MMLU | 77% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Amazon Nova Lite: 25.0 (#118), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 990 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Amazon Nova Lite: 38.2 (#227), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1208 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1225 | — |
| LMArena French | 1237 | — |
| LMArena German | 1229 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1153 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1153 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1216 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1225 | — |
Instruction Following Sonar leads
Amazon Nova Lite: 59.6 (#250), Sonar: 71.5 (#146)
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 54.1% | 76.2% |
| IFEval | 77.6% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1205 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Amazon Nova Lite: 37.4 (#212), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1234 | — |
Writing & Preference Sonar leads
Amazon Nova Lite: 42.3 (#232), Sonar: 52.6 (#166)
| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Language | 25.9% | 44.1% |
| LMArena Text | 1229 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1197 | — |
| WildBench | 75% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1199 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Amazon Nova Lite better than Sonar?
Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.8 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index. Amazon Nova Lite costs 9.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Sonar's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Amazon Nova Lite or Sonar?
Amazon Nova Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.24 per million output tokens; Sonar lists at $1 and $1.
Is Amazon Nova Lite or Sonar better for coding?
Sonar scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.1 versus 32.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Amazon Nova Lite does, with 300K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Amazon Nova Lite and Sonar share?
7 benchmarks have published results for both models. Amazon Nova Lite has 34 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.