# Mistral Large 3 vs Nova 2 Lite

> Mistral Large 3 and Nova 2 Lite score almost the same on the Noometry Index (39.1 vs 39.7), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/mistral-large-3-vs-nova-2-lite
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 18

## Summary

- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Large 3 scores higher in 5 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 3 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Nova 2 Lite leads 27.5 to 15.2.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Vectara Hallucination Rate: 14.5% for Mistral Large 3 and 5.1% for Nova 2 Lite.
- Mistral Large 3 is cheaper at $0.25 / $0.75 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Mistral Large 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Mistral Large 3 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 39.1 | 39.7 |
| Rank | 176 | 161 |
| Context | 262K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.25 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $0.75 | $2.50 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Mistral Large 3: 34.4 (#237)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1448 | 1385 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1230 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Mistral Large 3: —
- Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |

## Reasoning

- Mistral Large 3: 15.2 (#319)
- Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1429 | 1364 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 50.9% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 7.5% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 23% | — |

## Math

- Mistral Large 3: 38.7 (#129)
- Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1414 | 1359 |

## Knowledge

- Mistral Large 3: 36.0 (#177)
- Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 14.5% | 5.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1421 | 1358 |

## Multimodal

- Mistral Large 3: 38.2 (#66)
- Nova 2 Lite: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1221 | — |

## Multilingual

- Mistral Large 3: 52.5 (#84)
- Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1413 | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1447 | 1364 |
| LMArena French | 1455 | 1381 |
| LMArena German | 1437 | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1394 | 1271 |
| LMArena Korean | 1384 | 1284 |
| LMArena Russian | 1411 | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1440 | 1373 |

## Instruction Following

- Mistral Large 3: 74.0 (#108)
- Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1403 | 1335 |

## Long Context

- Mistral Large 3: 43.1 (#105)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1413 | 1335 |

## Writing & Preference

- Mistral Large 3: 60.0 (#101)
- Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1428 | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1386 | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1429 | 1338 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1412 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Mistral Large 3 better than Nova 2 Lite?

Mistral Large 3 and Nova 2 Lite score almost the same on the Noometry Index (39.1 vs 39.7), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### Which is cheaper, Mistral Large 3 or Nova 2 Lite?

Mistral Large 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.25 per million input tokens and $0.75 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

### Is Mistral Large 3 or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?

Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 34.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

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

### How many benchmarks do Mistral Large 3 and Nova 2 Lite share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Large 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.