# Nova 2 Lite vs Qwen3.6 27B

> Qwen3.6 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/nova-2-lite-vs-qwen3-6-27b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.6 27B leads 47.5 to 34.8.
- Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $0.60 / $3.60 for Qwen3.6 27B.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Qwen3.6 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.0 | 41.9 |
| Rank | 161 | 112 |
| 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)
- Qwen3.6 27B: 38.5 (#162)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 37.3% |
| LMArena Coding | 1386 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Nova 2 Lite: 23.9 (#114)
- Qwen3.6 27B: —

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | — |

## Reasoning

- Nova 2 Lite: 26.4 (#120)
- Qwen3.6 27B: 24.4 (#148)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | — | 0.9% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 22% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1364 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 7% |
| DTBench | — | 78.1% |
| LMCA | — | 34.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 146.47 |

## Math

- Nova 2 Lite: 34.8 (#154)
- Qwen3.6 27B: 47.5 (#56)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 35.1% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 91.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1359 | — |

## Knowledge

- Nova 2 Lite: 42.5 (#88)
- Qwen3.6 27B: 52.4 (#58)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 85.9% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.1% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1360 | — |

## Multilingual

- Nova 2 Lite: 47.3 (#148)
- Qwen3.6 27B: —

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1337 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1364 | — |
| LMArena French | 1381 | — |
| LMArena German | 1343 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1273 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1284 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1343 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1372 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Nova 2 Lite: 70.7 (#156)
- Qwen3.6 27B: —

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1335 | — |

## Long Context

- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#145)
- Qwen3.6 27B: —

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1335 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Nova 2 Lite: 54.1 (#150)
- Qwen3.6 27B: 50.3 (#180)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1362 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1291 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | — | 1026 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1338 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Nova 2 Lite better than Qwen3.6 27B?

Qwen3.6 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.6 27B?

Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 27B lists at $0.60 and $3.60.

### Is Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.6 27B better for coding?

Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.1 versus 38.5 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 Qwen3.6 27B share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 27B has 11.