Noometry

Model comparison

Ministral 8B vs Nova 2 Lite

Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 5.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 14 shared benchmarks.

Ministral 8B Mistral AI

28.2

Rank #325 Confirmed

Nova 2 Lite Amazon

39.7

Rank #161 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Ministral 8B scores higher in 0 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Nova 2 Lite leads 43.0 to 12.6.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 11.1% for Ministral 8B and 27.1% for Nova 2 Lite.
  • Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.15 / $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 262K.
  • Ministral 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Ministral 8BNova 2 Lite
ProviderMistral AIAmazon
Noometry Index28.239.7
Released2024-10-012025-12-01
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window262K1M
Max output262K64K
Input $ / M tokens$0.15$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$0.15$2.50
Results tracked1719

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Category by category

Coding Nova 2 Lite leads

Ministral 8B: 35.0 (#230), Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)

BenchmarkMinistral 8BNova 2 Lite
LMArena Coding12021385

Agentic & Tool Use Nova 2 Lite leads

Ministral 8B: 16.4 (#148), Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)

BenchmarkMinistral 8BNova 2 Lite
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard11.1%27.1%

Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads

Ministral 8B: 18.4 (#281), Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)

BenchmarkMinistral 8BNova 2 Lite
LMArena Hard Prompts11911364
DTBench45.7%—

Math Nova 2 Lite leads

Ministral 8B: 25.7 (#267), Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)

BenchmarkMinistral 8BNova 2 Lite
LMArena Math11881359
MATH Level 514.9%—

Knowledge Nova 2 Lite leads

Ministral 8B: 12.6 (#297), Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)

BenchmarkMinistral 8BNova 2 Lite
Vectara Hallucination Rate7.4%5.1%
LMArena Expert11701358
GPQA Diamond27.1%—

Multilingual Nova 2 Lite leads

Ministral 8B: 35.1 (#247), Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)

BenchmarkMinistral 8BNova 2 Lite
LMArena Non-English11651337
LMArena Chinese11931364
LMArena Russian11951343
LMArena French—1381
LMArena German—1343
LMArena Japanese—1271
LMArena Korean—1284
LMArena Spanish—1373

Instruction Following Nova 2 Lite leads

Ministral 8B: 60.5 (#250), Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)

BenchmarkMinistral 8BNova 2 Lite
LMArena Instruction Following11611335

Long Context Nova 2 Lite leads

Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#227), Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)

BenchmarkMinistral 8BNova 2 Lite
LMArena Longer Query12121335

Writing & Preference Nova 2 Lite leads

Ministral 8B: 39.6 (#246), Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)

BenchmarkMinistral 8BNova 2 Lite
LMArena Text11911362
LMArena Creative Writing11751291
LMArena Multi-Turn11661338

Frequently asked questions

Is Ministral 8B better than Nova 2 Lite?

Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 5.7× 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 8B or Nova 2 Lite?

Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

Is Ministral 8B or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?

Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 35.0 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Ministral 8B and Nova 2 Lite share?

14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Ministral 8B has 17 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.

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