Model comparison
GPT-5 Nano vs Nova 2 Lite
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 33.5 on the Noometry Index. GPT-5 Nano costs 6.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5 Nano scores higher in 2 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 7 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Nova 2 Lite leads 53.9 to 39.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 51.5% for GPT-5 Nano and 27.1% for Nova 2 Lite.
- GPT-5 Nano is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 400K.
Side by side
| GPT-5 Nano | Nova 2 Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 33.5 | 39.7 |
| Released | 2025-08-07 | 2025-12-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 400K | 1M |
| Max output | 128K | 64K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.40 | $2.50 |
| Results tracked | 49 | 19 |
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Category by category
Coding Nova 2 Lite leads
GPT-5 Nano: 33.6 (#254), Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1351 | 1385 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 34.8% | — |
| WeirdML | 38.1% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 718.67 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use GPT-5 Nano leads
GPT-5 Nano: 25.8 (#106), Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 51.5% | 27.1% |
| Terminal-Bench | 21.8% | — |
Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads
GPT-5 Nano: 16.3 (#306), Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1328 | 1364 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 2.6% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 62.2% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 20.7% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 27% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 9% | — |
| DTBench | 62.7% | — |
| LMCA | 7.9% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 139.38 | — |
| ForecastBench | 59.1 | — |
Math Nova 2 Lite leads
GPT-5 Nano: 29.4 (#241), Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1317 | 1359 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 20% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 2.4% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 81.1% | — |
| ProofBench | 12% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 54.6% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 95.2% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 8.3% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 2.1% | — |
Knowledge Nova 2 Lite leads
GPT-5 Nano: 35.9 (#178), Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 10.5% | 5.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1321 | 1358 |
| GPQA Diamond | 69.4% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 11.7% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 77.8% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 67.9% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
GPT-5 Nano: 31.3 (#108), Nova 2 Lite: —
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1159 | — |
| VPCT | 37.2% | — |
Multilingual Nova 2 Lite leads
GPT-5 Nano: 45.3 (#172), Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1313 | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1356 | 1364 |
| LMArena German | 1327 | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1226 | 1271 |
| LMArena Korean | 1269 | 1284 |
| LMArena Russian | 1296 | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1360 | 1373 |
| LMArena French | — | 1381 |
Instruction Following GPT-5 Nano leads
GPT-5 Nano: 75.0 (#79), Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1306 | 1335 |
| IFEval | 93.2% | — |
Long Context Nova 2 Lite leads
GPT-5 Nano: 31.3 (#281), Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1312 | 1335 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 44.4% | — |
Writing & Preference Nova 2 Lite leads
GPT-5 Nano: 39.1 (#249), Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1320 | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1249 | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1311 | 1338 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 705 | — |
| WildBench | 80.6% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is GPT-5 Nano better than Nova 2 Lite?
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 33.5 on the Noometry Index. GPT-5 Nano costs 6.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, GPT-5 Nano or Nova 2 Lite?
GPT-5 Nano is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.
Is GPT-5 Nano or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?
Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 33.6 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 400K.
How many benchmarks do GPT-5 Nano and Nova 2 Lite share?
18 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5 Nano has 49 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.