Noometry

Model comparison

Nova 2 Lite vs Phi-4

Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 costs 9.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 19 shared benchmarks.

Nova 2 Lite Amazon

39.7

Rank #161 Confirmed

Phi-4 Microsoft

31.2

Rank #279 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 9 categories and Phi-4 in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Nova 2 Lite leads 37.5 to 20.8.
  • Phi-4 is cheaper at $0.07 / $0.14 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
  • Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 128K.
  • Phi-4 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Nova 2 LitePhi-4
ProviderAmazonMicrosoft
Noometry Index39.731.2
Released2025-12-012024-12-11
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M128K
Max output64K4K
Input $ / M tokens$0.30$0.07
Output $ / M tokens$2.50$0.14
Results tracked1937

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Category by category

Coding Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134), Phi-4: 34.4 (#239)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi-4
LMArena Coding13851231
BigCodeBench Instruct—45.5%
LiveBench Coding—30.7%
BigCodeBench Complete—55.4%

Agentic & Tool Use Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121), Phi-4: 22.8 (#128)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi-4
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard27.1%28.8%
BALROG—11.6%

Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118), Phi-4: 17.7 (#291)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi-4
LMArena Hard Prompts13641220
Chess Puzzles—1%
LiveBench Reasoning—47.8%
LiveBench Data Analysis—45.2%
Epoch Capabilities Index—130.42
LiveBench—41.6%

Math Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156), Phi-4: 20.8 (#285)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi-4
LMArena Math13591246
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—13.8%
LiveBench Math—42%
MATH Level 5—64.9%

Knowledge Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94), Phi-4: 32.6 (#209)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi-4
Vectara Hallucination Rate5.1%3.7%
LMArena Expert13581203
GPQA Diamond—56.1%
Confabulations—29.4%
MMLU—84.8%

Multilingual Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153), Phi-4: 37.2 (#237)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi-4
LMArena Non-English13371197
LMArena Chinese13641212
LMArena French13811224
LMArena German13431222
LMArena Japanese12711158
LMArena Korean12841151
LMArena Russian13431209
LMArena Spanish13731234

Instruction Following Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161), Phi-4: 60.4 (#251)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi-4
LMArena Instruction Following13351201
LiveBench Instruction Following—58.4%

Long Context Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150), Phi-4: 36.9 (#226)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi-4
LMArena Longer Query13351217

Writing & Preference Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154), Phi-4: 40.5 (#244)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi-4
LMArena Text13621217
LMArena Creative Writing12911182
LMArena Multi-Turn13381206
Short-Story Creative Writing—62.6%
LiveBench Language—25.6%

Frequently asked questions

Is Nova 2 Lite better than Phi-4?

Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 costs 9.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Phi-4?

Phi-4 is cheaper. It lists at $0.07 per million input tokens and $0.14 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

Is Nova 2 Lite or Phi-4 better for coding?

Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 34.4 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do Nova 2 Lite and Phi-4 share?

19 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Phi-4 has 37.

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