Model comparison
Granite 4.0 Micro vs Nova 2 Lite
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 21× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Nova 2 Lite leads 43.0 to 9.9.
- Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Granite 4.0 Micro has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Granite 4.0 Micro | Nova 2 Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 29.0 | 39.7 |
| Released | 2025-10-02 | 2025-12-01 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 131K | 1M |
| Max output | 118K | 64K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.017 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.11 | $2.50 |
| Results tracked | 8 | 19 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | — | 1385 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |
Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 19.2 (#265), Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1364 |
Math Nova 2 Lite leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 12.0 (#307), Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 2.8% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 20.9% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1359 |
Knowledge Nova 2 Lite leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#304), Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 28.3% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 39.5% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 5.1% |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1358 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1364 |
| LMArena French | — | 1381 |
| LMArena German | — | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1271 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1284 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1373 |
Instruction Following Too close to call
Granite 4.0 Micro: 69.9 (#169), Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 84.9% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1335 |
Long Context Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1335 |
Writing & Preference Nova 2 Lite leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#216), Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1291 |
| WildBench | 67% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1338 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Nova 2 Lite?
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 21× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Nova 2 Lite?
Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.
Which has the bigger context window?
Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and Nova 2 Lite share?
0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.