# Amazon Nova Lite vs DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus

> DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.1 to 31.9 on the Noometry Index. Amazon Nova Lite costs 4.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/amazon-nova-lite-vs-deepseek-v3-1-terminus
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 11

## Summary

- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Amazon Nova Lite scores higher in 0 categories and DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus in 7 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus leads 61.0 to 42.1.
- Amazon Nova Lite is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.24 per million input/output tokens, against $0.27 / $1 for DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus.
- Amazon Nova Lite accepts more context: 300K tokens versus 164K.
- DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Amazon Nova Lite | DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | DeepSeek |
| Noometry Index | 31.9 | 43.1 |
| Rank | 265 | 97 |
| Context | 300K | 164K |
| Input $/M | $0.06 | $0.27 |
| Output $/M | $0.24 | $1 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Amazon Nova Lite: 32.5 (#270)
- DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus: 42.0 (#113)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1239 | 1426 |
| ALE-Bench | 236.25 | 745.17 |
| SciCode | — | 40.6% |
| LiveBench Coding | 27.5% | — |

## Reasoning

- Amazon Nova Lite: 19.3 (#260)
- DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus: 26.4 (#133)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1220 | 1426 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 57.4% |
| CritPt | — | 1.7% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 36.7% | — |
| DTBench | — | 81.3% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 37.2% | — |
| LMCA | — | 28.6% |
| LiveBench | 36.4% | — |

## Math

- Amazon Nova Lite: 27.8 (#247)
- DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus: 38.5 (#137)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1227 | 1402 |
| Omni-MATH | 23.3% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 36.7% | — |

## Knowledge

- Amazon Nova Lite: 26.3 (#259)
- DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus: —

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus |
|---|---|---|
| Humanity's Last Exam | 3.6% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 60% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 6.1% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 39.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1201 | — |
| MMLU | 77% | — |

## Multimodal

- Amazon Nova Lite: 25.5 (#123)
- DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus: —

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 990 | — |

## Multilingual

- Amazon Nova Lite: 38.0 (#232)
- DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus: 52.1 (#92)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1208 | 1407 |
| LMArena Russian | 1216 | 1436 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1225 | — |
| LMArena French | 1237 | — |
| LMArena German | 1229 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1153 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1153 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1226 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Amazon Nova Lite: 59.3 (#255)
- DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus: 74.0 (#106)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1205 | 1404 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 54.1% | — |
| IFEval | 77.6% | — |

## Long Context

- Amazon Nova Lite: 37.4 (#217)
- DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus: 43.4 (#97)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1234 | 1421 |

## Writing & Preference

- Amazon Nova Lite: 42.1 (#237)
- DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus: 61.0 (#92)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1229 | 1419 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1197 | 1403 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1199 | 1411 |
| WildBench | 75% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 25.9% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Amazon Nova Lite better than DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus?

DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.1 to 31.9 on the Noometry Index. Amazon Nova Lite costs 4.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Amazon Nova Lite or DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus?

Amazon Nova Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.24 per million output tokens; DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus lists at $0.27 and $1.

### Is Amazon Nova Lite or DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus better for coding?

DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.0 versus 32.5 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Amazon Nova Lite does, with 300K tokens against 164K.

### How many benchmarks do Amazon Nova Lite and DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Amazon Nova Lite has 34 scored results on Noometry and DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus has 16.