Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Nova 2 Lite
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 4.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 88.7 to 34.8.
- Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 60.5 | 39.0 |
| Released | 2026-09-28 | 2025-12-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Max output | 128K | 64K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | $2.50 |
| Results tracked | 16 | 19 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 65.5 (#6), Nova 2 Lite: 40.1 (#131)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | — |
| CursorBench | 55.5% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1699 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | — |
| SciCode | 61% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1386 |
| ALE-Bench | 1,819 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 44.9 (#14), Nova 2 Lite: 23.9 (#114)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 52.4 (#29), Nova 2 Lite: 26.4 (#120)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 31.4% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1364 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 65% | — |
Math Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 88.7 (#4), Nova 2 Lite: 34.8 (#154)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 88.8% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 80.5% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1359 |
Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#11), Nova 2 Lite: 42.5 (#88)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 95.6% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 5.1% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1360 |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 53.2 (#5), Nova 2 Lite: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Furniture Assembly | 75% | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: —, Nova 2 Lite: 47.3 (#148)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1364 |
| LMArena French | — | 1381 |
| LMArena German | — | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1273 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1284 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1372 |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: —, Nova 2 Lite: 70.7 (#156)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1335 |
Long Context Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: —, Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#145)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1335 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: —, Nova 2 Lite: 54.1 (#150)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1338 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Nova 2 Lite?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 4.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 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 Sonnet 5.5 lists at $2 and $10.
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 65.5 versus 40.1 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Both accept 1M tokens.
How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Nova 2 Lite share?
0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 16 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.