Model comparison
Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Nova 2 Lite
Mistral Medium 3.5 and Nova 2 Lite score almost the same on the Noometry Index (40.2 vs 39.7), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Last verified . 16 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Medium 3.5 scores higher in 5 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 3 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Nova 2 Lite leads 27.5 to 17.3.
- Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Mistral Medium 3.5 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Mistral Medium 3.5 | Nova 2 Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 40.2 | 39.7 |
| Released | — | 2025-12-01 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 262K | 1M |
| Max output | 210K | 64K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $1.50 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $7.50 | $2.50 |
| Results tracked | 22 | 19 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Nova 2 Lite leads
Mistral Medium 3.5: 36.0 (#213), Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1461 | 1385 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1264 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Mistral Medium 3.5: —, Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |
Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads
Mistral Medium 3.5: 17.3 (#295), Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1436 | 1364 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 41.4% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 12.9% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 141.35 | — |
Math Mistral Medium 3.5 leads
Mistral Medium 3.5: 39.1 (#113), Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1431 | 1359 |
Knowledge Nova 2 Lite leads
Mistral Medium 3.5: 40.0 (#126), Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1432 | 1358 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 5.1% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Mistral Medium 3.5: 38.3 (#65), Nova 2 Lite: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1223 | — |
Multilingual Mistral Medium 3.5 leads
Mistral Medium 3.5: 51.9 (#100), Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1404 | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1442 | 1364 |
| LMArena French | 1448 | 1381 |
| LMArena German | 1451 | 1343 |
| LMArena Korean | 1385 | 1284 |
| LMArena Russian | 1395 | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1409 | 1373 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1271 |
Instruction Following Mistral Medium 3.5 leads
Mistral Medium 3.5: 74.6 (#90), Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1415 | 1335 |
Long Context Mistral Medium 3.5 leads
Mistral Medium 3.5: 43.2 (#103), Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1415 | 1335 |
Writing & Preference Mistral Medium 3.5 leads
Mistral Medium 3.5: 58.5 (#117), Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1421 | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1374 | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1423 | 1338 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 993 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Medium 3.5 better than Nova 2 Lite?
Mistral Medium 3.5 and Nova 2 Lite score almost the same on the Noometry Index (40.2 vs 39.7), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3.5 or Nova 2 Lite?
Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Mistral Medium 3.5 lists at $1.50 and $7.50.
Is Mistral Medium 3.5 or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?
Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 36.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Mistral Medium 3.5 and Nova 2 Lite share?
16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Medium 3.5 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.