Model comparison
Mercury 2.5 vs Nova 2 Lite
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 33.5 on the Noometry Index. Mercury 2.5 costs 13× 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 math, where Nova 2 Lite leads 37.5 to 23.3.
- Mercury 2.5 is cheaper at $0.04 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 260K.
Side by side
| Mercury 2.5 | Nova 2 Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Inception | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 33.5 | 39.7 |
| Released | 2026-09-08 | 2025-12-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 260K | 1M |
| Max output | 66K | 64K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.04 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.15 | $2.50 |
| Results tracked | 4 | 19 |
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Category by category
Coding Nova 2 Lite leads
Mercury 2.5: 39.5 (#156), Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)
| Benchmark | Mercury 2.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 38.5% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1385 |
| ALE-Bench | 301.65 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Mercury 2.5: —, Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)
| Benchmark | Mercury 2.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |
Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads
Mercury 2.5: 22.4 (#193), Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)
| Benchmark | Mercury 2.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1364 |
Math Nova 2 Lite leads
Mercury 2.5: 23.3 (#272), Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)
| Benchmark | Mercury 2.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| ProofBench | 3% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1359 |
Knowledge Not comparable
Mercury 2.5: —, Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)
| Benchmark | Mercury 2.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 5.1% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1358 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Mercury 2.5: —, Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)
| Benchmark | Mercury 2.5 | 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
Mercury 2.5: —, Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)
| Benchmark | Mercury 2.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1335 |
Long Context Not comparable
Mercury 2.5: —, Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)
| Benchmark | Mercury 2.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1335 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Mercury 2.5: —, Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)
| Benchmark | Mercury 2.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1338 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mercury 2.5 better than Nova 2 Lite?
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 33.5 on the Noometry Index. Mercury 2.5 costs 13× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Mercury 2.5 or Nova 2 Lite?
Mercury 2.5 is cheaper. It lists at $0.04 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.
Is Mercury 2.5 or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?
Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 39.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 260K.
How many benchmarks do Mercury 2.5 and Nova 2 Lite share?
0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mercury 2.5 has 4 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.