Model comparison
Ministral 3B vs Nova 2 Lite
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 26.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 3B costs 8.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 1 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. Ministral 3B scores higher in 0 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 3 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Nova 2 Lite leads 43.0 to 10.4.
- Ministral 3B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.10 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Ministral 3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 26.2 | 39.7 |
| Released | 2024-10-01 | 2025-12-01 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 131K | 1M |
| Max output | 262K | 64K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.10 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.10 | $2.50 |
| Results tracked | 6 | 19 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | — | 1385 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |
Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads
Ministral 3B: 18.4 (#282), Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1364 |
| DTBench | 51.7% | — |
| LMCA | 5.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 118.1 | — |
Math Nova 2 Lite leads
Ministral 3B: 26.6 (#258), Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | — | 1359 |
| MATH Level 5 | 14.4% | — |
Knowledge Nova 2 Lite leads
Ministral 3B: 10.4 (#302), Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.3% | 5.1% |
| GPQA Diamond | 25.3% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1358 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | 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
Ministral 3B: —, Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1335 |
Long Context Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1335 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1338 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Ministral 3B better than Nova 2 Lite?
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 26.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 3B costs 8.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Ministral 3B or Nova 2 Lite?
Ministral 3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.10 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 Ministral 3B and Nova 2 Lite share?
1 benchmark has published results for both models. Ministral 3B has 6 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.