Model comparison
Nova 2 Lite vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 38.1 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 5 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Nova 2 Lite leads 43.0 to 37.0.
- Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.7 | 38.1 |
| Released | 2025-12-01 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 64K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | $1.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2.50 | $7.50 |
| Results tracked | 19 | 25 |
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Category by category
Coding Nova 2 Lite leads
Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 35.5 (#223)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1385 | 1412 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 55.4% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1275 |
| GSO | — | 4.9% |
| WeirdML | — | 41.2% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 461.45 |
| AlgoTune | — | 1.44 |
Agentic & Tool Use Too close to call
Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.9 (#123)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 27.2% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | — |
Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads
Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 25.5 (#149)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1364 | 1372 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 49.5% |
Math Too close to call
Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.6 (#150)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1359 | 1365 |
Knowledge Nova 2 Lite leads
Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.0 (#162)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1358 | 1338 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.1% | — |
Multilingual Too close to call
Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.7 (#148)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1337 | 1346 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1364 | 1357 |
| LMArena French | 1381 | 1398 |
| LMArena German | 1343 | 1325 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1271 | 1310 |
| LMArena Korean | 1284 | 1305 |
| LMArena Russian | 1343 | 1366 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1373 | 1360 |
Instruction Following Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.6 (#147)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1335 | 1355 |
Long Context Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#131)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1335 | 1378 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.3 (#147)
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1362 | 1357 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1291 | 1333 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1338 | 1365 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Nova 2 Lite better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 38.1 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?
Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct lists at $1.50 and $7.50.
Is Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?
Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 35.5 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-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.