# Nova 2 Lite vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

> Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the stronger model overall, scoring 45.7 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 397B-A17B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/nova-2-lite-vs-qwen3-5-397b-a17b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads 53.3 to 42.5.
- Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $0.60 / $3.60 for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.0 | 45.7 |
| Rank | 161 | 60 |
| Context | 1M | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | $0.60 |
| Output $/M | $2.50 | $3.60 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Nova 2 Lite: 40.1 (#131)
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 41.7 (#108)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1386 | 1464 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1400 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Nova 2 Lite: 23.9 (#114)
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 33.2 (#51)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 24.9% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | — |
| τ²-bench Airline | — | 81.5% |
| τ²-bench Banking | — | 9.8% |
| τ²-bench Retail | — | 84.4% |
| τ²-bench Telecom | — | 97.8% |

## Reasoning

- Nova 2 Lite: 26.4 (#120)
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 33.6 (#62)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1364 | 1448 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 73.7% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 58.9% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 13% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 65.1% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 18% |
| DTBench | — | 87.5% |
| LMCA | — | 37.9% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 146.64 |

## Math

- Nova 2 Lite: 34.8 (#154)
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 44.9 (#64)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1359 | 1455 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 31.2% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 88.9% |

## Knowledge

- Nova 2 Lite: 42.5 (#88)
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 53.3 (#53)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1360 | 1461 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 86.4% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.1% | — |

## Multimodal

- Nova 2 Lite: —
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 40.0 (#42)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1262 |

## Multilingual

- Nova 2 Lite: 47.3 (#148)
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 54.0 (#56)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1337 | 1431 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1364 | 1501 |
| LMArena French | 1381 | 1461 |
| LMArena German | 1343 | 1447 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1273 | 1427 |
| LMArena Korean | 1284 | 1382 |
| LMArena Russian | 1343 | 1429 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1372 | 1443 |

## Instruction Following

- Nova 2 Lite: 70.7 (#156)
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 75.2 (#73)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1335 | 1424 |

## Long Context

- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#145)
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 44.1 (#71)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1335 | 1442 |

## Writing & Preference

- Nova 2 Lite: 54.1 (#150)
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 62.5 (#74)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1362 | 1438 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1291 | 1401 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1338 | 1447 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1478 |

## FAQ

### Is Nova 2 Lite better than Qwen3.5 397B-A17B?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the stronger model overall, scoring 45.7 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 397B-A17B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.5 397B-A17B?

Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 397B-A17B lists at $0.60 and $3.60.

### Is Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.5 397B-A17B better for coding?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.7 versus 40.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

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

### How many benchmarks do Nova 2 Lite and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has 36.