Model comparison
Granite 4.0 H Small vs Nova 2 Lite
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 36.5 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 14 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.0 H Small scores higher in 0 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Nova 2 Lite leads 43.0 to 32.0.
- Granite 4.0 H Small has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Granite 4.0 H Small | Nova 2 Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 36.5 | 39.7 |
| Released | — | 2025-12-01 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | — | 1M |
| Max output | — | 64K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $2.50 |
| Results tracked | 19 | 19 |
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Category by category
Coding Nova 2 Lite leads
Granite 4.0 H Small: 36.4 (#209), Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1249 | 1385 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 4.0 H Small: —, Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |
Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads
Granite 4.0 H Small: 24.4 (#163), Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1240 | 1364 |
Math Nova 2 Lite leads
Granite 4.0 H Small: 31.4 (#223), Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1247 | 1359 |
| Omni-MATH | 29.6% | — |
Knowledge Nova 2 Lite leads
Granite 4.0 H Small: 32.0 (#215), Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.2% | 5.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1251 | 1358 |
| MMLU-Pro | 56.9% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 38.3% | — |
Multilingual Nova 2 Lite leads
Granite 4.0 H Small: 38.6 (#228), Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1216 | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1249 | 1364 |
| LMArena Russian | 1201 | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1258 | 1373 |
| LMArena French | — | 1381 |
| LMArena German | — | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1271 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1284 |
Instruction Following Nova 2 Lite leads
Granite 4.0 H Small: 68.7 (#183), Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1222 | 1335 |
| IFEval | 89% | — |
Long Context Nova 2 Lite leads
Granite 4.0 H Small: 37.7 (#213), Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1242 | 1335 |
Writing & Preference Nova 2 Lite leads
Granite 4.0 H Small: 43.8 (#227), Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1241 | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1211 | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1242 | 1338 |
| WildBench | 73.9% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.0 H Small better than Nova 2 Lite?
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 36.5 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 4.0 H Small or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?
Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 36.4 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 H Small and Nova 2 Lite share?
14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 H Small has 19 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.