# Ministral 8B vs Nova 2 Lite

> Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 5.7× 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-8b-vs-nova-2-lite
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 14

## Summary

- They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Ministral 8B scores higher in 0 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Nova 2 Lite leads 43.0 to 12.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 11.1% for Ministral 8B and 27.1% for Nova 2 Lite.
- Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.15 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Ministral 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Ministral 8B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 28.2 | 39.7 |
| Rank | 325 | 161 |
| Context | 262K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.15 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $0.15 | $2.50 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Ministral 8B: 35.0 (#230)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1202 | 1385 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Ministral 8B: 16.4 (#148)
- Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 11.1% | 27.1% |

## Reasoning

- Ministral 8B: 18.4 (#281)
- Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1191 | 1364 |
| DTBench | 45.7% | — |

## Math

- Ministral 8B: 25.7 (#267)
- Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1188 | 1359 |
| MATH Level 5 | 14.9% | — |

## Knowledge

- Ministral 8B: 12.6 (#297)
- Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.4% | 5.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1170 | 1358 |
| GPQA Diamond | 27.1% | — |

## Multilingual

- Ministral 8B: 35.1 (#247)
- Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1165 | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1193 | 1364 |
| LMArena Russian | 1195 | 1343 |
| LMArena French | — | 1381 |
| LMArena German | — | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1271 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1284 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1373 |

## Instruction Following

- Ministral 8B: 60.5 (#250)
- Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1161 | 1335 |

## Long Context

- Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#227)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1212 | 1335 |

## Writing & Preference

- Ministral 8B: 39.6 (#246)
- Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1191 | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1175 | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1166 | 1338 |

## FAQ

### Is Ministral 8B better than Nova 2 Lite?

Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 5.7× 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 8B or Nova 2 Lite?

Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

### Is Ministral 8B or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?

Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 35.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

### How many benchmarks do Ministral 8B and Nova 2 Lite share?

14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Ministral 8B has 17 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.