Noometry

Model comparison

Nova 2 Lite vs Qwen3 Max

Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 2.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

Nova 2 Lite Amazon

39.7

Rank #161 Confirmed

Qwen3 Max Alibaba (Qwen)

43.7

Rank #87 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3 Max in 7 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3 Max leads 62.4 to 53.9.
  • Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $1.20 / $6 for Qwen3 Max.
  • Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.

Side by side

Nova 2 LiteQwen3 Max
ProviderAmazonAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index39.743.7
Released2025-12-012025-09-23
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1M262K
Max output64K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.30$1.20
Output $ / M tokens$2.50$6
Results tracked1933

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3 Max leads

Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134), Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3 Max
LMArena Coding13851456
ALE-Bench—370.45

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121), Qwen3 Max: —

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3 Max
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard27.1%—
Vending-Bench 2—71.56

Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118), Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3 Max
LMArena Hard Prompts13641448
Kagi LLM Benchmark—72.5%
NYT Connections (extended)—30.1%
Chess Puzzles—4%
Mystery Game Puzzles—5%
DTBench—82.1%
LMCA—28.3%
Epoch Capabilities Index—142.38

Math Qwen3 Max leads

Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156), Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3 Max
LMArena Math13591446
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—18.9%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—73.3%
MATH Level 5—97.1%

Knowledge Qwen3 Max leads

Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3 Max
LMArena Expert13581455
GPQA Diamond—72.6%
SimpleQA Verified—48.7%
Vectara Hallucination Rate5.1%—

Multilingual Qwen3 Max leads

Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153), Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3 Max
LMArena Non-English13371429
LMArena Chinese13641478
LMArena French13811449
LMArena German13431463
LMArena Japanese12711397
LMArena Korean12841399
LMArena Russian13431428
LMArena Spanish13731462

Instruction Following Qwen3 Max leads

Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161), Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3 Max
LMArena Instruction Following13351419

Long Context Qwen3 Max leads

Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150), Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3 Max
LMArena Longer Query13351438
Fiction.LiveBench—66.7%
CL-bench—14.5%

Writing & Preference Qwen3 Max leads

Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154), Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3 Max
LMArena Text13621439
LMArena Creative Writing12911402
LMArena Multi-Turn13381446

Frequently asked questions

Is Nova 2 Lite better than Qwen3 Max?

Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 2.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3 Max?

Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Max lists at $1.20 and $6.

Is Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3 Max better for coding?

Qwen3 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.0 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 Max share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.

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