# Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite vs Nova 2 Lite

> Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.8 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemini-3-1-flash-lite-vs-nova-2-lite
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 18

## Summary

- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite scores higher in 6 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 3 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads 60.9 to 53.9.
- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is cheaper at $0.25 / $1.50 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 1M.

## Snapshot

| | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 40.8 | 39.7 |
| Rank | 144 | 161 |
| Context | 1.05M | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.25 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $1.50 | $2.50 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 37.8 (#188)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1400 | 1385 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1256 | — |
| SciCode | 41.9% | — |
| WeirdML | 52.2% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 797.73 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 30.2 (#79)
- Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |
| DeepResearch Bench | 37.3% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 22.9 (#186)
- Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1407 | 1364 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 67.2% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 8.2% | — |
| CritPt | 1.1% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 25% | — |
| EnigmaEval | 3% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 63.3% | — |
| DTBench | 76.8% | — |
| LMCA | 35% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 144.47 | — |
| ForecastBench | 54.4 | — |

## Math

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 40.7 (#90)
- Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1428 | 1359 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 27.7% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 80% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 41.9 (#104)
- Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 8.2% | 5.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1398 | 1358 |
| GPQA Diamond | 81.8% | — |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 8.6% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 39.4 (#60)
- Nova 2 Lite: —

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1240 | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 52.3 (#86)
- Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1411 | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1461 | 1364 |
| LMArena French | 1424 | 1381 |
| LMArena German | 1429 | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1413 | 1271 |
| LMArena Korean | 1392 | 1284 |
| LMArena Russian | 1420 | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1421 | 1373 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 72.7 (#131)
- Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1377 | 1335 |

## Long Context

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 42.5 (#122)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1394 | 1335 |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 60.9 (#94)
- Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1416 | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1401 | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1417 | 1338 |

## FAQ

### Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite better than Nova 2 Lite?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.8 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite or Nova 2 Lite?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.25 per million input tokens and $1.50 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

### Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?

Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 37.8 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.

### How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and Nova 2 Lite share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite has 38 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.
