Noometry

Model comparison

MiniMax-M2.5 vs Nova 2 Lite

MiniMax-M2.5 and Nova 2 Lite score almost the same on the Noometry Index (38.1 vs 39.0), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2.5 MiniMax

38.1

Rank #181 Confirmed

Nova 2 Lite Amazon

39.0

Rank #161 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher in 5 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 4 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Nova 2 Lite leads 34.8 to 25.8.
  • MiniMax-M2.5 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
  • Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 205K.
  • MiniMax-M2.5 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2.5Nova 2 Lite
ProviderMiniMaxAmazon
Noometry Index38.139.0
Released2026-02-122025-12-01
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window205K1M
Max output131K64K
Input $ / M tokens$0.30$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$1.20$2.50
Results tracked3319

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M2.5 leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 47.9 (#53), Nova 2 Lite: 40.1 (#131)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.5Nova 2 Lite
LMArena Coding13801386
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)75.8%—
LMArena WebDev1386—
SWE-bench Multilingual68.3%—
ALE-Bench618.17—

Agentic & Tool Use MiniMax-M2.5 leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 30.2 (#70), Nova 2 Lite: 23.9 (#114)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.5Nova 2 Lite
Terminal-Bench42.7%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—27.1%
Vending-Bench 2-23.16—

Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 17.6 (#281), Nova 2 Lite: 26.4 (#120)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.5Nova 2 Lite
LMArena Hard Prompts13721364
ARC-AGI-24.9%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark55.2%—
NYT Connections (extended)16.8%—
ARC-AGI-163.7%—
Epoch Capabilities Index146.68—

Math Nova 2 Lite leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 25.8 (#242), Nova 2 Lite: 34.8 (#154)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.5Nova 2 Lite
LMArena Math13781359
ProofBench4%—

Knowledge Nova 2 Lite leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 38.6 (#132), Nova 2 Lite: 42.5 (#88)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.5Nova 2 Lite
Vectara Hallucination Rate9.1%5.1%
LMArena Expert13781360

Multilingual Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.5: 47.3 (#147), Nova 2 Lite: 47.3 (#148)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.5Nova 2 Lite
LMArena Non-English13381337
LMArena Chinese13921364
LMArena French13631381
LMArena German13611343
LMArena Japanese11691273
LMArena Korean12321284
LMArena Russian13591343
LMArena Spanish13541372

Instruction Following Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.5: 71.7 (#143), Nova 2 Lite: 70.7 (#156)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.5Nova 2 Lite
LMArena Instruction Following13531335

Long Context Nova 2 Lite leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 37.4 (#211), Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#145)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.5Nova 2 Lite
LMArena Longer Query13671335
CL-bench11.4%—
CL-bench Life6.3%—

Writing & Preference Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.5: 54.1 (#149), Nova 2 Lite: 54.1 (#150)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.5Nova 2 Lite
LMArena Text13591362
LMArena Creative Writing13311291
LMArena Multi-Turn13641338
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1361—

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M2.5 better than Nova 2 Lite?

MiniMax-M2.5 and Nova 2 Lite score almost the same on the Noometry Index (38.1 vs 39.0), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.5 or Nova 2 Lite?

MiniMax-M2.5 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

Is MiniMax-M2.5 or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 47.9 versus 40.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.5 and Nova 2 Lite share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.5 has 33 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.

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