Model comparison
Nova 2 Lite vs Qwen3.5 Plus
Qwen3.5 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.9 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 1 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5 Plus in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.5 Plus leads 49.6 to 37.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Vectara Hallucination Rate: 5.1% for Nova 2 Lite and 10.7% for Qwen3.5 Plus.
- Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $2.40 for Qwen3.5 Plus.
Side by side
| Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.7 | 42.9 |
| Released | 2025-12-01 | 2026-02-16 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Max output | 64K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | $0.40 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2.50 | $2.40 |
| Results tracked | 19 | 15 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1385 | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 621.92 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 0.54 |
Reasoning Qwen3.5 Plus leads
Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118), Qwen3.5 Plus: 32.8 (#74)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | — | 22% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1364 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 17% |
| DTBench | — | 80.5% |
| LMCA | — | 36.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 146.78 |
Math Qwen3.5 Plus leads
Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156), Qwen3.5 Plus: 49.6 (#61)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 86.7% |
| LMArena Math | 1359 | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 21% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 2.1% |
Knowledge Qwen3.5 Plus leads
Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94), Qwen3.5 Plus: 46.0 (#83)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.1% | 10.7% |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 84.8% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 25.4% |
| LMArena Expert | 1358 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1337 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1364 | — |
| LMArena French | 1381 | — |
| LMArena German | 1343 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1271 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1284 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1343 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1373 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1335 | — |
Long Context Qwen3.5 Plus leads
Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150), Qwen3.5 Plus: 43.0 (#113)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| CL-bench | — | 19.8% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 12.4% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1335 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1362 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1291 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1338 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Nova 2 Lite better than Qwen3.5 Plus?
Qwen3.5 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.9 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.5 Plus?
Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 Plus lists at $0.40 and $2.40.
Which has the bigger context window?
Both accept 1M tokens.
How many benchmarks do Nova 2 Lite and Qwen3.5 Plus share?
1 benchmark has published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 Plus has 15.