# Nova 2 Lite vs o3-pro

> o3-pro is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.9 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 41× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o3-pro's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/nova-2-lite-vs-o3-pro
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 1

## Summary

- They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 2 categories and o3-pro in 3 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in long context, where o3-pro leads 72.2 to 40.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Vectara Hallucination Rate: 5.1% for Nova 2 Lite and 23.3% for o3-pro.
- Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $20 / $80 for o3-pro.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 200K.

## Snapshot

| | Nova 2 Lite | o3-pro |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | OpenAI |
| Noometry Index | 39.7 | 42.9 |
| Rank | 161 | 105 |
| Context | 1M | 200K |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | $20 |
| Output $/M | $2.50 | $80 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)
- o3-pro: 55.5 (#24)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | o3-pro |
|---|---|---|
| Aider Polyglot | — | 84.9% |
| WeirdML | — | 58.2% |
| LMArena Coding | 1385 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)
- o3-pro: —

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | o3-pro |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | — |

## Reasoning

- Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)
- o3-pro: 23.8 (#171)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | o3-pro |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 4.9% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 72.1% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 59.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1364 | — |
| DTBench | — | 86.9% |
| LMCA | — | 38.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 147.42 |

## Math

- Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)
- o3-pro: —

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | o3-pro |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1359 | — |

## Knowledge

- Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)
- o3-pro: 29.5 (#238)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | o3-pro |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.1% | 23.3% |
| Confabulations | — | 14.2% |
| LMArena Expert | 1358 | — |

## Multilingual

- Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)
- o3-pro: —

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | o3-pro |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1337 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1364 | — |
| LMArena French | 1381 | — |
| LMArena German | 1343 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1271 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1284 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1343 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1373 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)
- o3-pro: —

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | o3-pro |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1335 | — |

## Long Context

- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)
- o3-pro: 72.2 (#1)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | o3-pro |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 97.2% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1335 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)
- o3-pro: 57.1 (#133)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | o3-pro |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1362 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1291 | — |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 84.4% |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1338 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Nova 2 Lite better than o3-pro?

o3-pro is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.9 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 41× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o3-pro's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or o3-pro?

Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; o3-pro lists at $20 and $80.

### Is Nova 2 Lite or o3-pro better for coding?

o3-pro scores higher on coding benchmarks: 55.5 versus 40.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 200K.

### How many benchmarks do Nova 2 Lite and o3-pro share?

1 benchmark has published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and o3-pro has 12.
