# GPT-5 Mini vs Nova 2 Lite

> GPT-5 Mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.7 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gpt-5-mini-vs-nova-2-lite
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 19

## Summary

- They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5 Mini scores higher in 7 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 2 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where GPT-5 Mini leads 46.3 to 34.8.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 55.5% for GPT-5 Mini and 27.1% for Nova 2 Lite.
- GPT-5 Mini is cheaper at $0.25 / $2 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 400K.

## Snapshot

| | GPT-5 Mini | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 41.7 | 39.0 |
| Rank | 115 | 161 |
| Context | 400K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.25 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $2 | $2.50 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

- GPT-5 Mini: 40.0 (#134)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.1 (#131)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1406 | 1386 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 64.7% | — |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 59.8% | — |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 39.7% | — |
| SciCode | 39.2% | — |
| WeirdML | 52.7% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 799.77 | — |
| AlgoTune | 1.38 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- GPT-5 Mini: 31.0 (#64)
- Nova 2 Lite: 23.9 (#114)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 55.5% | 27.1% |
| Terminal-Bench | 34.8% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | -31.18 | — |

## Reasoning

- GPT-5 Mini: 24.1 (#153)
- Nova 2 Lite: 26.4 (#120)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1380 | 1364 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 4.4% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 70.3% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 54.3% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 30% | — |
| EnigmaEval | 8.2% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 10% | — |
| DTBench | 80.5% | — |
| LMCA | 34.2% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 145.51 | — |
| ForecastBench | 61 | — |

## Math

- GPT-5 Mini: 46.3 (#59)
- Nova 2 Lite: 34.8 (#154)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1377 | 1359 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 46.7% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 12.2% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 86.7% | — |
| ProofBench | 9% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 72.2% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 97.8% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 27.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 6.3% | — |

## Knowledge

- GPT-5 Mini: 45.5 (#80)
- Nova 2 Lite: 42.5 (#88)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 12.9% | 5.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1377 | 1360 |
| GPQA Diamond | 75% | — |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 19.4% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 21.6% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 83.5% | — |
| Confabulations | 13.3% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 75.6% | — |

## Multimodal

- GPT-5 Mini: 35.0 (#80)
- Nova 2 Lite: —

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1202 | — |
| VPCT | 40.2% | — |

## Multilingual

- GPT-5 Mini: 49.1 (#131)
- Nova 2 Lite: 47.3 (#148)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1363 | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1387 | 1364 |
| LMArena French | 1385 | 1381 |
| LMArena German | 1366 | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1342 | 1273 |
| LMArena Korean | 1306 | 1284 |
| LMArena Russian | 1362 | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1355 | 1372 |

## Instruction Following

- GPT-5 Mini: 76.4 (#43)
- Nova 2 Lite: 70.7 (#156)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1357 | 1335 |
| IFEval | 92.7% | — |

## Long Context

- GPT-5 Mini: 41.9 (#127)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#145)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1355 | 1335 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 69.4% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- GPT-5 Mini: 55.4 (#143)
- Nova 2 Lite: 54.1 (#150)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1373 | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1325 | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1363 | 1338 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 83.1% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1313 | — |
| WildBench | 85.5% | — |

## FAQ

### Is GPT-5 Mini better than Nova 2 Lite?

GPT-5 Mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.7 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, GPT-5 Mini or Nova 2 Lite?

GPT-5 Mini is cheaper. It lists at $0.25 per million input tokens and $2 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

### Is GPT-5 Mini or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (40.0 vs 40.1); test both on your own repository before choosing.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 400K.

### How many benchmarks do GPT-5 Mini and Nova 2 Lite share?

19 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5 Mini has 60 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.