# Ministral 3B vs Nova 2 Lite

> Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 25.6 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 3B costs 21× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

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

## Summary

- They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. Ministral 3B scores higher in 0 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 3 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Nova 2 Lite leads 42.5 to 10.4.
- Ministral 3B is cheaper at $0.04 / $0.04 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 128K.
- Ministral 3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 25.6 | 39.0 |
| Rank | 336 | 161 |
| Context | 128K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.04 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $0.04 | $2.50 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Ministral 3B: —
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.1 (#131)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | — | 1386 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Ministral 3B: —
- Nova 2 Lite: 23.9 (#114)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |

## Reasoning

- Ministral 3B: 17.7 (#278)
- Nova 2 Lite: 26.4 (#120)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1364 |
| DTBench | 51.7% | — |
| LMCA | 5.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 118.08 | — |

## Math

- Ministral 3B: 24.5 (#257)
- Nova 2 Lite: 34.8 (#154)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | — | 1359 |
| MATH Level 5 | 14.4% | — |

## Knowledge

- Ministral 3B: 10.4 (#297)
- Nova 2 Lite: 42.5 (#88)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.3% | 5.1% |
| GPQA Diamond | 25.3% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1360 |

## Multilingual

- Ministral 3B: —
- Nova 2 Lite: 47.3 (#148)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1364 |
| LMArena French | — | 1381 |
| LMArena German | — | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1273 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1284 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1372 |

## Instruction Following

- Ministral 3B: —
- Nova 2 Lite: 70.7 (#156)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1335 |

## Long Context

- Ministral 3B: —
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#145)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1335 |

## Writing & Preference

- Ministral 3B: —
- Nova 2 Lite: 54.1 (#150)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1338 |

## FAQ

### Is Ministral 3B better than Nova 2 Lite?

Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 25.6 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 3B costs 21× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Ministral 3B or Nova 2 Lite?

Ministral 3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.04 per million input tokens and $0.04 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do Ministral 3B and Nova 2 Lite share?

1 benchmark has published results for both models. Ministral 3B has 6 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.