Model comparison
Nova 2 Lite vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 3.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 14 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Max Preview in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads 54.1 to 37.5.
- Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $1.30 / $7.80 for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
Side by side
| Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.7 | 51.5 |
| Released | 2025-12-01 | 2026-04-20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 64K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | $1.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2.50 | $7.80 |
| Results tracked | 19 | 29 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.7 (#54)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1385 | 1471 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 76.7% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1482 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 4,254 |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 41.7 (#53)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1364 | 1457 |
| SimpleBench | — | 63% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 74.1% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 20% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 19% |
| DTBench | — | 87.2% |
| LMCA | — | 42.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 149.24 |
Math Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.1 (#46)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1359 | 1465 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 91.1% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 23.1% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#39)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1358 | 1478 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 87.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 52% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.1% | — |
Multilingual Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.2 (#48)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1337 | 1437 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1364 | 1487 |
| LMArena French | 1381 | 1449 |
| LMArena Russian | 1343 | 1445 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1373 | 1454 |
| LMArena German | 1343 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1271 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1284 | — |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.7 (#55)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1335 | 1438 |
Long Context Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#61)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1335 | 1457 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 63.8 (#60)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1362 | 1447 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1291 | 1435 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1338 | 1456 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Nova 2 Lite better than Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 3.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Max Preview lists at $1.30 and $7.80.
Is Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.6 Max Preview better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.7 versus 40.7 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 Qwen3.6 Max Preview share?
14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29.