Model comparison
Nova 2 Lite vs Qwen3 8B
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 2.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 2 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3 8B in 1 category; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Nova 2 Lite leads 27.5 to 16.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 27.1% for Nova 2 Lite and 42.6% for Qwen3 8B.
- Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Qwen3 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.7 | 33.7 |
| Released | 2025-12-01 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 131K |
| Max output | 64K | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | $0.18 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2.50 | $0.70 |
| Results tracked | 19 | 11 |
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Category by category
Coding Nova 2 Lite leads
Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134), Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 22.6% |
| LMArena Coding | 1385 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Qwen3 8B leads
Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121), Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | 42.6% |
Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads
Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118), Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1364 | — |
| DTBench | — | 59.7% |
| LMCA | — | 8.8% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 136.17 |
Math Nova 2 Lite leads
Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156), Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 56.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1359 | — |
Knowledge Nova 2 Lite leads
Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.1% | 4.8% |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 56.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1358 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| 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 8B: —
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1335 | — |
Long Context Nova 2 Lite leads
Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150), Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 62.1% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1335 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1362 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1291 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1338 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Nova 2 Lite better than Qwen3 8B?
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 2.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3 8B?
Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.
Is Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3 8B better for coding?
Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 34.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Nova 2 Lite and Qwen3 8B share?
2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.