Noometry

Model comparison

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nova 2 Lite

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Nova 2 Lite score almost the same on the Noometry Index (40.0 vs 39.7), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning NVIDIA

40.0

Rank #155 Confirmed

Nova 2 Lite Amazon

39.7

Rank #161 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher in 0 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 8 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Nova 2 Lite leads 43.0 to 37.5.
  • Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
  • Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
  • Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Nemotron 3.5 LightningNova 2 Lite
ProviderNVIDIAAmazon
Noometry Index40.039.7
Released2026-08-112025-12-01
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window262K1M
Max output262K64K
Input $ / M tokens$0.05$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$0.20$2.50
Results tracked1819

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Category by category

Coding Too close to call

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141), Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)

BenchmarkNemotron 3.5 LightningNova 2 Lite
LMArena Coding13751385

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —, Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)

BenchmarkNemotron 3.5 LightningNova 2 Lite
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—27.1%

Reasoning Too close to call

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127), Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)

BenchmarkNemotron 3.5 LightningNova 2 Lite
LMArena Hard Prompts13371364

Math Too close to call

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155), Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)

BenchmarkNemotron 3.5 LightningNova 2 Lite
LMArena Math13591359

Knowledge Nova 2 Lite leads

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154), Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)

BenchmarkNemotron 3.5 LightningNova 2 Lite
LMArena Expert13561358
Vectara Hallucination Rate—5.1%

Multilingual Nova 2 Lite leads

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180), Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)

BenchmarkNemotron 3.5 LightningNova 2 Lite
LMArena Non-English12951337
LMArena Chinese13591364
LMArena French13661381
LMArena German12821343
LMArena Japanese12061271
LMArena Korean12381284
LMArena Russian12531343
LMArena Spanish13451373

Instruction Following Too close to call

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170), Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)

BenchmarkNemotron 3.5 LightningNova 2 Lite
LMArena Instruction Following13181335

Long Context Too close to call

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165), Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)

BenchmarkNemotron 3.5 LightningNova 2 Lite
LMArena Longer Query13141335

Writing & Preference Nova 2 Lite leads

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201), Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)

BenchmarkNemotron 3.5 LightningNova 2 Lite
LMArena Text13271362
LMArena Creative Writing12541291
LMArena Multi-Turn13281338
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1280—

Frequently asked questions

Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Nova 2 Lite?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Nova 2 Lite score almost the same on the Noometry Index (40.0 vs 39.7), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nova 2 Lite?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (40.4 vs 40.7); test both on your own repository before choosing.

Which has the bigger context window?

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

How many benchmarks do Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Nova 2 Lite share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.

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