Model comparison
Claude Opus 5.5 vs Nova 2 Lite
Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 9.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 14 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher in 9 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Opus 5.5 leads 91.8 to 37.5.
- Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $4 / $20 for Claude Opus 5.5.
Side by side
| Claude Opus 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 68.6 | 39.7 |
| Released | 2026-09-22 | 2025-12-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Max output | 128K | 64K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $4 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $20 | $2.50 |
| Results tracked | 44 | 19 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 71.9 (#3), Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1547 | 1385 |
| FrontierCode | 54.6% | — |
| CursorBench | 57.8% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1813 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 62.3% | — |
| SciCode | 66.9% | — |
| MirrorCode | 77.4% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 2,147 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 45.3 (#15), Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 73.5% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |
| GDP.pdf | 30.6% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 9,235 | — |
Reasoning Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 80.2 (#3), Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1535 | 1364 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 93.3% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 88.5% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 98.5% | — |
| CritPt | 31.7% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 71.4% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 71% | — |
| DTBench | 98.9% | — |
| LMCA | 68.2% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 167.33 | — |
Math Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 91.8 (#3), Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1506 | 1359 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 91.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 95% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
| FrontierMath Erdős | 2.9% | — |
Knowledge Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 66.4 (#10), Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1547 | 1358 |
| GPQA Diamond | 90.6% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 72.2% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 5.1% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Opus 5.5: 57.8 (#1), Nova 2 Lite: —
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1321 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 51.2% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 83.3% | — |
Multilingual Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 59.1 (#2), Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1507 | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1588 | 1364 |
| LMArena French | 1514 | 1381 |
| LMArena Russian | 1520 | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1507 | 1373 |
| LMArena German | — | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1271 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1284 |
Instruction Following Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 80.0 (#3), Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1537 | 1335 |
Long Context Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 47.1 (#19), Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1532 | 1335 |
Writing & Preference Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 78.2 (#3), Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1515 | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1533 | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1499 | 1338 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 2050 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than Nova 2 Lite?
Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 9.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5.5 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 5.5 lists at $4 and $20.
Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?
Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 71.9 versus 40.7 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Both accept 1M tokens.
How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 5.5 and Nova 2 Lite share?
14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 5.5 has 44 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.