Noometry

Model comparison

GPT-5.6 Terra vs Nova 2 Lite

GPT-5.6 Terra is the stronger model overall, scoring 59.1 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 5.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5.6 Terra's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

GPT-5.6 Terra OpenAI

59.1

Rank #15 Confirmed

Nova 2 Lite Amazon

39.0

Rank #161 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5.6 Terra 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 GPT-5.6 Terra leads 81.5 to 34.8.
  • Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $12 for GPT-5.6 Terra.
  • GPT-5.6 Terra accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 1M.

Side by side

GPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
ProviderOpenAIAmazon
Noometry Index59.139.0
Released2026-07-092025-12-01
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1.05M1M
Max output128K64K
Input $ / M tokens$2$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$12$2.50
Results tracked5219

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 57.1 (#16), Nova 2 Lite: 40.1 (#131)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Coding14841386
DeepSWE69.6%—
FrontierCode41.3%—
CursorBench41.3%—
LMArena WebDev1520—
SciCode55%—
WeirdML78.3%—
ALE-Bench1,951—

Agentic & Tool Use GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 40.2 (#23), Nova 2 Lite: 23.9 (#114)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
APEX-Agents58.2%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—27.1%
BALROG53.2%—
GDP.pdf24.7%—
Vending-Bench 27,343—

Reasoning GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 60.6 (#19), Nova 2 Lite: 26.4 (#120)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Hard Prompts14671364
ARC-AGI-283.9%—
SimpleBench48.9%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark51.3%—
NYT Connections (extended)78.4%—
ARC-AGI-196.5%—
CritPt30%—
Chess Puzzles54%—
Mystery Game Puzzles35%—
DTBench93.3%—
LMCA55%—
Surface Evolver Bench83.8%—
Epoch Capabilities Index159.31—

Math GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 81.5 (#10), Nova 2 Lite: 34.8 (#154)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Math14631359
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)86%—
FrontierMath Tier 470.7%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202599.7%—
ProofBench74%—

Knowledge GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 61.3 (#27), Nova 2 Lite: 42.5 (#88)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Expert14921360
GPQA Diamond93.3%—
SimpleQA Verified43.2%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate—5.1%

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-5.6 Terra: 47.5 (#10), Nova 2 Lite: —

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Vision1271—
Blueprint-Bench 230.8%—
Furniture Assembly54.2%—
LMArena Document1472—

Multilingual GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 54.5 (#42), Nova 2 Lite: 47.3 (#148)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Non-English14391337
LMArena Chinese15141364
LMArena French14761381
LMArena German14621343
LMArena Japanese14461273
LMArena Korean14201284
LMArena Russian14501343
LMArena Spanish14551372

Instruction Following GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 76.6 (#38), Nova 2 Lite: 70.7 (#156)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Instruction Following14531335

Long Context GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 44.4 (#64), Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#145)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Longer Query14521335

Writing & Preference GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 70.4 (#21), Nova 2 Lite: 54.1 (#150)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Text14461362
LMArena Creative Writing14111291
LMArena Multi-Turn14511338
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1855—
EQ-Bench 41234—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-5.6 Terra better than Nova 2 Lite?

GPT-5.6 Terra is the stronger model overall, scoring 59.1 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 5.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5.6 Terra's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, GPT-5.6 Terra 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; GPT-5.6 Terra lists at $2 and $12.

Is GPT-5.6 Terra or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?

GPT-5.6 Terra scores higher on coding benchmarks: 57.1 versus 40.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-5.6 Terra does, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.

How many benchmarks do GPT-5.6 Terra and Nova 2 Lite share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5.6 Terra has 52 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.

Related comparisons

Go deeper