# Mistral Large vs Nova 2 Lite

> Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

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

## Summary

- They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Large scores higher in 1 category and Nova 2 Lite in 8 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Nova 2 Lite leads 34.8 to 17.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 38.4% for Mistral Large and 27.1% for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Mistral Large.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Mistral Large has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 31.6 | 39.0 |
| Rank | 258 | 161 |
| Context | 131K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $2 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $6 | $2.50 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Mistral Large: 33.8 (#240)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.1 (#131)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1277 | 1386 |
| SciCode | 36.2% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 30% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 47.1% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 38.3% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 264.7 | — |
| HumanEval+ | 62.2% | — |
| MBPP+ | 59.5% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Mistral Large: 28.4 (#83)
- Nova 2 Lite: 23.9 (#114)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 38.4% | 27.1% |

## Reasoning

- Mistral Large: 15.4 (#305)
- Nova 2 Lite: 26.4 (#120)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1257 | 1364 |
| SimpleBench | 22.5% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 43.5% | — |
| DTBench | 65.1% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 50.1% | — |
| LMCA | 16.7% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 128.52 | — |
| ForecastBench | 57.1 | — |
| LiveBench | 48.4% | — |

## Math

- Mistral Large: 17.1 (#285)
- Nova 2 Lite: 34.8 (#154)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1262 | 1359 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 8.5% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 28.1% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 42.5% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 50.3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 0.3% | — |

## Knowledge

- Mistral Large: 30.0 (#224)
- Nova 2 Lite: 42.5 (#88)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.5% | 5.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1232 | 1360 |
| GPQA Diamond | 51.3% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 59.9% | — |
| Confabulations | 21.4% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 43.5% | — |
| MMLU | 80% | — |

## Multilingual

- Mistral Large: 40.1 (#214)
- Nova 2 Lite: 47.3 (#148)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1237 | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1240 | 1364 |
| LMArena French | 1324 | 1381 |
| LMArena German | 1254 | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1187 | 1273 |
| LMArena Korean | 1202 | 1284 |
| LMArena Russian | 1257 | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1268 | 1372 |

## Instruction Following

- Mistral Large: 68.1 (#186)
- Nova 2 Lite: 70.7 (#156)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1249 | 1335 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 67.9% | — |
| IFEval | 87.7% | — |

## Long Context

- Mistral Large: 38.3 (#194)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#145)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1262 | 1335 |

## Writing & Preference

- Mistral Large: 40.9 (#237)
- Nova 2 Lite: 54.1 (#150)

| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1266 | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1243 | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1260 | 1338 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 69% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 985 | — |
| WildBench | 80.1% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 39.4% | — |

## FAQ

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

Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

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

Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Mistral Large lists at $2 and $6.

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

Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.1 versus 33.8 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

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

19 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Large has 51 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.