Model comparison

Nova 2 Lite vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the stronger model overall, scoring 45.7 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 397B-A17B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 17 shared benchmarks.

Nova 2 Lite Amazon

39.0

Rank #161 Confirmed

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

Alibaba (Qwen)

45.7

Rank #60 Confirmed

Summary

They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads 53.3 to 42.5.
Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $0.60 / $3.60 for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B.
Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Nova 2 Lite and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B specifications
	Nova 2 Lite	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
Provider	Amazon	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	39.0	45.7
Released	2025-12-01	2026-02-01
Weights	Proprietary	Open
Context window	1M	262K
Max output	64K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$0.60
Output $ / M tokens	$2.50	$3.60
Results tracked	19	36

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 40.1 (#131), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 41.7 (#108)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Nova 2 Lite	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Coding	1386	1464
LMArena WebDev	—	1400

Agentic & Tool Use Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 23.9 (#114), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 33.2 (#51)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Nova 2 Lite	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
APEX-Agents	—	24.9%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	27.1%	—
τ²-bench Airline	—	81.5%
τ²-bench Banking	—	9.8%
τ²-bench Retail	—	84.4%
τ²-bench Telecom	—	97.8%

Reasoning Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 26.4 (#120), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 33.6 (#62)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Nova 2 Lite	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Hard Prompts	1364	1448
Kagi LLM Benchmark	—	73.7%
NYT Connections (extended)	—	58.9%
Chess Puzzles	—	13%
Thematic Generalization	—	65.1%
Mystery Game Puzzles	—	18%
DTBench	—	87.5%
LMCA	—	37.9%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	146.64

Math Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 34.8 (#154), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 44.9 (#64)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Nova 2 Lite	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Math	1359	1455
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	—	31.2%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	88.9%

Knowledge Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 42.5 (#88), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 53.3 (#53)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Nova 2 Lite	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Expert	1360	1461
GPQA Diamond	—	86.4%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	5.1%	—

Multimodal Not comparable

Nova 2 Lite: —, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 40.0 (#42)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Nova 2 Lite	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Vision	—	1262

Multilingual Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 47.3 (#148), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 54.0 (#56)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Nova 2 Lite	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Non-English	1337	1431
LMArena Chinese	1364	1501
LMArena French	1381	1461
LMArena German	1343	1447
LMArena Japanese	1273	1427
LMArena Korean	1284	1382
LMArena Russian	1343	1429
LMArena Spanish	1372	1443

Instruction Following Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 70.7 (#156), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 75.2 (#73)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Nova 2 Lite	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Instruction Following	1335	1424

Long Context Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#145), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 44.1 (#71)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Nova 2 Lite	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Longer Query	1335	1442

Writing & Preference Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 54.1 (#150), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 62.5 (#74)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Nova 2 Lite	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Text	1362	1438
LMArena Creative Writing	1291	1401
LMArena Multi-Turn	1338	1447
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	—	1478

Frequently asked questions

Is Nova 2 Lite better than Qwen3.5 397B-A17B?

Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.5 397B-A17B?

Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 397B-A17B lists at $0.60 and $3.60.

Is Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.5 397B-A17B better for coding?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.7 versus 40.1 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 397B-A17B share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has 36.