# Mistral Small 3.1 vs Nova 2 Lite

> Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.1 costs 2.1× 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/mistral-small-3-1-vs-nova-2-lite
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3.1 scores higher in 0 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Nova 2 Lite leads 34.8 to 13.7.
- Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper at $0.35 / $0.56 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 128K.
- Mistral Small 3.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Mistral Small 3.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 31.4 | 39.0 |
| Rank | 263 | 161 |
| Context | 128K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.35 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $0.56 | $2.50 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Mistral Small 3.1: 37.7 (#175)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.1 (#131)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1309 | 1386 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Mistral Small 3.1: —
- Nova 2 Lite: 23.9 (#114)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |

## Reasoning

- Mistral Small 3.1: 18.9 (#249)
- Nova 2 Lite: 26.4 (#120)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1278 | 1364 |
| Chess Puzzles | 1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.48 | — |

## Math

- Mistral Small 3.1: 13.7 (#295)
- Nova 2 Lite: 34.8 (#154)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1261 | 1359 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 3.9% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 24.8% | — |

## Knowledge

- Mistral Small 3.1: 22.6 (#266)
- Nova 2 Lite: 42.5 (#88)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1258 | 1360 |
| GPQA Diamond | 41.9% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 61% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 5.1% |
| GPQA (HELM) | 39.2% | — |

## Multimodal

- Mistral Small 3.1: 32.6 (#93)
- Nova 2 Lite: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1136 | — |

## Multilingual

- Mistral Small 3.1: 41.4 (#204)
- Nova 2 Lite: 47.3 (#148)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1255 | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1254 | 1364 |
| LMArena French | 1270 | 1381 |
| LMArena German | 1266 | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1210 | 1273 |
| LMArena Korean | 1206 | 1284 |
| LMArena Russian | 1263 | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1283 | 1372 |

## Instruction Following

- Mistral Small 3.1: 63.8 (#225)
- Nova 2 Lite: 70.7 (#156)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1264 | 1335 |
| IFEval | 75% | — |

## Long Context

- Mistral Small 3.1: 39.5 (#172)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#145)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1300 | 1335 |

## Writing & Preference

- Mistral Small 3.1: 37.2 (#254)
- Nova 2 Lite: 54.1 (#150)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1278 | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1253 | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1270 | 1338 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 761 | — |
| WildBench | 78.8% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Mistral Small 3.1 better than Nova 2 Lite?

Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.1 costs 2.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3.1 or Nova 2 Lite?

Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.35 per million input tokens and $0.56 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

### Is Mistral Small 3.1 or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?

Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.1 versus 37.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

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

### How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3.1 and Nova 2 Lite share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3.1 has 28 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.