Noometry

Model comparison

Nova 2 Lite vs Qwen3.5 27B

Qwen3.5 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.

Nova 2 Lite Amazon

39.7

Rank #161 Confirmed

Qwen3.5 27B Alibaba (Qwen)

41.9

Rank #127 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3.5 27B in 6 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.5 27B leads 59.3 to 53.9.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Vectara Hallucination Rate: 5.1% for Nova 2 Lite and 12.1% for Qwen3.5 27B.
  • Both cost about the same: $0.30 input and $2.50 output per million tokens.
  • Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
  • Qwen3.5 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Nova 2 LiteQwen3.5 27B
ProviderAmazonAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index39.741.9
Released2025-12-012026-02-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M262K
Max output64K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.30$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$2.50$2.40
Results tracked1928

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Category by category

Coding Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.9 (#168)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 27B
LMArena Coding13851427
LMArena WebDev—1358
WeirdML—39.5%
ALE-Bench—349.45

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121), Qwen3.5 27B: —

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 27B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard27.1%—
Vending-Bench 2—201.98

Reasoning Too close to call

Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118), Qwen3.5 27B: 27.5 (#117)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 27B
LMArena Hard Prompts13641414
NYT Connections (extended)—47.9%
Thematic Generalization—45.5%
DTBench—82.4%
LMCA—34%

Math Qwen3.5 27B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.8 (#127)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 27B
LMArena Math13591429
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions—56.7%

Knowledge Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.0 (#150)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 27B
Vectara Hallucination Rate5.1%12.1%
LMArena Expert13581428

Multimodal Not comparable

Nova 2 Lite: —, Qwen3.5 27B: 39.4 (#59)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 27B
LMArena Vision—1241

Multilingual Qwen3.5 27B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153), Qwen3.5 27B: 50.8 (#115)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 27B
LMArena Non-English13371390
LMArena Chinese13641478
LMArena French13811410
LMArena German13431393
LMArena Japanese12711345
LMArena Korean12841358
LMArena Russian13431390
LMArena Spanish13731407

Instruction Following Qwen3.5 27B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161), Qwen3.5 27B: 73.5 (#119)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 27B
LMArena Instruction Following13351393

Long Context Qwen3.5 27B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150), Qwen3.5 27B: 43.1 (#106)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 27B
LMArena Longer Query13351413

Writing & Preference Qwen3.5 27B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154), Qwen3.5 27B: 59.3 (#111)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 27B
LMArena Text13621409
LMArena Creative Writing12911362
LMArena Multi-Turn13381410

Frequently asked questions

Is Nova 2 Lite better than Qwen3.5 27B?

Qwen3.5 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.5 27B?

Qwen3.5 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.40 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

Is Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.5 27B better for coding?

Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 38.9 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

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

How many benchmarks do Nova 2 Lite and Qwen3.5 27B share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 27B has 28.

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