# Nova 2 Lite vs Phi-4

> Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 costs 9.7× 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/nova-2-lite-vs-phi-4
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 19

## Summary

- They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 9 categories and Phi-4 in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Nova 2 Lite leads 34.8 to 19.6.
- Phi-4 is cheaper at $0.07 / $0.14 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 128K.
- Phi-4 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Nova 2 Lite | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 39.0 | 30.9 |
| Rank | 161 | 269 |
| Context | 1M | 128K |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | $0.07 |
| Output $/M | $2.50 | $0.14 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Nova 2 Lite: 40.1 (#131)
- Phi-4: 33.8 (#237)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1386 | 1231 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.5% |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 30.7% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 55.4% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Nova 2 Lite: 23.9 (#114)
- Phi-4: 22.6 (#120)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | 28.8% |
| BALROG | — | 11.6% |

## Reasoning

- Nova 2 Lite: 26.4 (#120)
- Phi-4: 17.0 (#287)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1364 | 1220 |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 1% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 47.8% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 45.2% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 130.43 |
| LiveBench | — | 41.6% |

## Math

- Nova 2 Lite: 34.8 (#154)
- Phi-4: 19.6 (#279)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1359 | 1246 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 13.8% |
| LiveBench Math | — | 42% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 64.9% |

## Knowledge

- Nova 2 Lite: 42.5 (#88)
- Phi-4: 32.5 (#204)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.1% | 3.7% |
| LMArena Expert | 1360 | 1203 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 56.1% |
| Confabulations | — | 29.4% |
| MMLU | — | 84.8% |

## Multilingual

- Nova 2 Lite: 47.3 (#148)
- Phi-4: 37.4 (#232)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1337 | 1197 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1364 | 1211 |
| LMArena French | 1381 | 1223 |
| LMArena German | 1343 | 1222 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1273 | 1158 |
| LMArena Korean | 1284 | 1151 |
| LMArena Russian | 1343 | 1209 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1372 | 1234 |

## Instruction Following

- Nova 2 Lite: 70.7 (#156)
- Phi-4: 60.6 (#246)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1335 | 1201 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 58.4% |

## Long Context

- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#145)
- Phi-4: 36.9 (#221)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1335 | 1217 |

## Writing & Preference

- Nova 2 Lite: 54.1 (#150)
- Phi-4: 40.7 (#239)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1362 | 1217 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1291 | 1182 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1338 | 1206 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 62.6% |
| LiveBench Language | — | 25.6% |

## FAQ

### Is Nova 2 Lite better than Phi-4?

Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 costs 9.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nova 2 Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Phi-4?

Phi-4 is cheaper. It lists at $0.07 per million input tokens and $0.14 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

### Is Nova 2 Lite or Phi-4 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 128K.

### How many benchmarks do Nova 2 Lite and Phi-4 share?

19 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Phi-4 has 37.