Model comparison
Claude Opus 4.1 vs Nova 2 Lite
Claude Opus 4.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.0 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 35× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 4.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 4.1 scores higher in 7 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 2 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Nova 2 Lite leads 37.5 to 22.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Vectara Hallucination Rate: 11.8% for Claude Opus 4.1 and 5.1% for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $15 / $75 for Claude Opus 4.1.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 200K.
Side by side
| Claude Opus 4.1 | Nova 2 Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 41.0 | 39.7 |
| Released | 2025-08-05 | 2025-12-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 200K | 1M |
| Max output | 32K | 64K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $15 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $75 | $2.50 |
| Results tracked | 48 | 19 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Opus 4.1 leads
Claude Opus 4.1: 44.4 (#73), Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1479 | 1385 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 73.3% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1390 | — |
| WeirdML | 45.9% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 674.77 | — |
| AlgoTune | 1.34 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Claude Opus 4.1 leads
Claude Opus 4.1: 35.0 (#41), Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 38% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |
| GDPval | 43.6% | — |
| Cybench | 42% | — |
| DeepResearch Bench | 48.3% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1148 | — |
| METR Time Horizons | 66.8% | — |
Reasoning Claude Opus 4.1 leads
Claude Opus 4.1: 32.2 (#76), Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1443 | 1364 |
| SimpleBench | 60% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 7% | — |
| EnigmaEval | 7.2% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 7.9% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 21% | — |
| DTBench | 80% | — |
| LMCA | 37.1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 144.12 | — |
| ForecastBench | 62 | — |
Math Nova 2 Lite leads
Claude Opus 4.1: 22.3 (#277), Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1431 | 1359 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 12.6% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 2.4% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 68.9% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 7.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 4.2% | — |
Knowledge Too close to call
Claude Opus 4.1: 42.0 (#101), Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 11.8% | 5.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1439 | 1358 |
| GPQA Diamond | 77.3% | — |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 11.5% | — |
| Confabulations | 17.1% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Opus 4.1: 26.8 (#119), Nova 2 Lite: —
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| VPCT | 35% | — |
Multilingual Claude Opus 4.1 leads
Claude Opus 4.1: 52.0 (#95), Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1405 | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1427 | 1364 |
| LMArena French | 1431 | 1381 |
| LMArena German | 1413 | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1378 | 1271 |
| LMArena Korean | 1380 | 1284 |
| LMArena Russian | 1422 | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1448 | 1373 |
Instruction Following Claude Opus 4.1 leads
Claude Opus 4.1: 75.6 (#58), Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1435 | 1335 |
Long Context Claude Opus 4.1 leads
Claude Opus 4.1: 44.5 (#63), Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1455 | 1335 |
Writing & Preference Claude Opus 4.1 leads
Claude Opus 4.1: 62.4 (#74), Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1419 | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1412 | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1444 | 1338 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 84.7% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Opus 4.1 better than Nova 2 Lite?
Claude Opus 4.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.0 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 35× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 4.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.1 or Nova 2 Lite?
Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 4.1 lists at $15 and $75.
Is Claude Opus 4.1 or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?
Claude Opus 4.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 44.4 versus 40.7 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 200K.
How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 4.1 and Nova 2 Lite share?
18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 4.1 has 48 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.