# Amazon Nova Lite vs MiniMax-M2

> MiniMax-M2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.9 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index. Amazon Nova Lite costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/amazon-nova-lite-vs-minimax-m2
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 15

## Summary

- They share 15 benchmarks with published results for both. Amazon Nova Lite scores higher in 0 categories and MiniMax-M2 in 8 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where MiniMax-M2 leads 53.3 to 42.3.
- Amazon Nova Lite is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.24 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.
- Amazon Nova Lite accepts more context: 300K tokens versus 205K.
- MiniMax-M2 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 31.4 | 36.9 |
| Rank | 262 | 201 |
| Context | 300K | 205K |
| Input $/M | $0.06 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $0.24 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Amazon Nova Lite: 32.0 (#266)
- MiniMax-M2: 39.1 (#151)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1239 | 1370 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 61% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1297 |
| LiveBench Coding | 27.5% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 236.25 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Amazon Nova Lite: —
- MiniMax-M2: 24.9 (#102)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 30% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 160.6 |

## Reasoning

- Amazon Nova Lite: 18.5 (#257)
- MiniMax-M2: 18.6 (#256)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1220 | 1357 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 57.8% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 14.8% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 36.7% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 37.2% | — |
| LiveBench | 36.4% | — |

## Math

- Amazon Nova Lite: 25.8 (#243)
- MiniMax-M2: 34.6 (#158)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1227 | 1350 |
| Omni-MATH | 23.3% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 36.7% | — |

## Knowledge

- Amazon Nova Lite: 26.0 (#254)
- MiniMax-M2: 36.3 (#160)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1201 | 1336 |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 3.6% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 60% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 6.1% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 39.7% | — |
| MMLU | 77% | — |

## Multimodal

- Amazon Nova Lite: 25.0 (#118)
- MiniMax-M2: —

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 990 | — |

## Multilingual

- Amazon Nova Lite: 38.2 (#227)
- MiniMax-M2: 45.6 (#165)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1208 | 1314 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1225 | 1367 |
| LMArena French | 1237 | 1336 |
| LMArena German | 1229 | 1366 |
| LMArena Russian | 1216 | 1332 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1225 | 1326 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1153 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1153 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Amazon Nova Lite: 59.6 (#250)
- MiniMax-M2: 70.4 (#160)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1205 | 1329 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 54.1% | — |
| IFEval | 77.6% | — |

## Long Context

- Amazon Nova Lite: 37.4 (#212)
- MiniMax-M2: 40.5 (#148)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1234 | 1332 |

## Writing & Preference

- Amazon Nova Lite: 42.3 (#232)
- MiniMax-M2: 53.3 (#157)

| Benchmark | Amazon Nova Lite | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1229 | 1340 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1197 | 1288 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1199 | 1362 |
| WildBench | 75% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 25.9% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Amazon Nova Lite better than MiniMax-M2?

MiniMax-M2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.9 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index. Amazon Nova Lite costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Amazon Nova Lite or MiniMax-M2?

Amazon Nova Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.24 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

### Is Amazon Nova Lite or MiniMax-M2 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.1 versus 32.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Amazon Nova Lite does, with 300K tokens against 205K.

### How many benchmarks do Amazon Nova Lite and MiniMax-M2 share?

15 benchmarks have published results for both models. Amazon Nova Lite has 34 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2 has 21.