Model comparison
Nova 2 Lite vs Qwen3.8 Max
Qwen3.8 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.8 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 3.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.8 Max in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.8 Max leads 73.2 to 37.5.
- Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Qwen3.8 Max.
Side by side
| Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.7 | 56.8 |
| Released | 2025-12-01 | 2026-08-02 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Max output | 64K | 131K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | $2 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2.50 | $6 |
| Results tracked | 19 | 39 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.8 Max leads
Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134), Qwen3.8 Max: 53.5 (#29)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1385 | 1502 |
| DeepSWE | — | 57.5% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1674 |
| FrontierSWE | — | 17.8% |
| SciCode | — | 53.2% |
Agentic & Tool Use Qwen3.8 Max leads
Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121), Qwen3.8 Max: 45.4 (#14)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 63.3% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | — | 55.1% |
| GDP.pdf | — | 23.2% |
Reasoning Qwen3.8 Max leads
Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118), Qwen3.8 Max: 54.4 (#26)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1364 | 1496 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 88.3% |
| CritPt | — | 20% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 40% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 38% |
| DTBench | — | 92% |
| LMCA | — | 46.2% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 156.41 |
Math Qwen3.8 Max leads
Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156), Qwen3.8 Max: 73.2 (#20)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1359 | 1499 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 74.7% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 46.3% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 100% |
| ProofBench | — | 58% |
Knowledge Qwen3.8 Max leads
Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94), Qwen3.8 Max: 61.7 (#27)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1358 | 1507 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 92.7% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 47.3% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.1% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Nova 2 Lite: —, Qwen3.8 Max: 37.2 (#75)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1314 |
| Furniture Assembly | — | 20% |
Multilingual Qwen3.8 Max leads
Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153), Qwen3.8 Max: 56.7 (#18)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1337 | 1472 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1364 | 1538 |
| LMArena French | 1381 | 1503 |
| LMArena German | 1343 | 1483 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1271 | 1467 |
| LMArena Korean | 1284 | 1461 |
| LMArena Russian | 1343 | 1481 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1373 | 1492 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.8 Max leads
Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161), Qwen3.8 Max: 77.6 (#17)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1335 | 1479 |
Long Context Qwen3.8 Max leads
Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150), Qwen3.8 Max: 45.6 (#31)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1335 | 1489 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.8 Max leads
Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154), Qwen3.8 Max: 67.1 (#30)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1362 | 1483 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1291 | 1479 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1338 | 1489 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Nova 2 Lite better than Qwen3.8 Max?
Qwen3.8 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.8 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 3.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.8 Max?
Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 Max lists at $2 and $6.
Is Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.8 Max better for coding?
Qwen3.8 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 53.5 versus 40.7 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Both accept 1M tokens.
How many benchmarks do Nova 2 Lite and Qwen3.8 Max share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.8 Max has 39.