Model comparison
Magistral Small vs Nova 2 Lite
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Nova 2 Lite leads 27.5 to 6.8.
- Magistral Small is cheaper at $0.50 / $1.50 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 128K.
- Magistral Small has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Magistral Small | Nova 2 Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 30.2 | 39.7 |
| Released | 2025-06-10 | 2025-12-01 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 128K | 1M |
| Max output | 40K | 64K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.50 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.50 | $2.50 |
| Results tracked | 10 | 19 |
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Category by category
Coding Nova 2 Lite leads
Magistral Small: 38.4 (#176), Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 35.2% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1385 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |
Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads
Magistral Small: 6.8 (#350), Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 6.3% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 5% | — |
| CritPt | 0.3% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 3% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1364 |
| DTBench | 61.3% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.19 | — |
Math Nova 2 Lite leads
Magistral Small: 26.2 (#261), Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 30% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1359 |
Knowledge Nova 2 Lite leads
Magistral Small: 30.9 (#223), Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.1% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 5.1% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1358 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | 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 Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1335 |
Long Context Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1335 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1338 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Magistral Small better than Nova 2 Lite?
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Magistral Small or Nova 2 Lite?
Magistral Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $1.50 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.
Is Magistral Small or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?
Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 38.4 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Magistral Small and Nova 2 Lite share?
0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Magistral Small has 10 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.