# Nova 2 Lite vs Qwen3.8 27B

> Qwen3.8 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.0 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/nova-2-lite-vs-qwen3-8-27b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3.8 27B in 7 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3.8 27B leads 41.0 to 27.5.
- Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $0.99 / $1.49 for Qwen3.8 27B.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Qwen3.8 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.7 | 46.0 |
| Rank | 161 | 68 |
| Context | 1M | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | $0.99 |
| Output $/M | $2.50 | $1.49 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 50.5 (#44)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1385 | 1482 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1593 |
| SciCode | — | 46.6% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 32.9 (#57)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 47.5% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | — |

## Reasoning

- Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 41.0 (#54)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1364 | 1460 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 42.4% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 54.5% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 87.5% |
| CritPt | — | 5.4% |
| DTBench | — | 88% |
| LMCA | — | 41.4% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 45% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 149.38 |

## Math

- Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 37.1 (#161)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1359 | 1456 |
| ProofBench | — | 16% |

## Knowledge

- Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 41.6 (#109)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1358 | 1482 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.1% | — |

## Multimodal

- Nova 2 Lite: —
- Qwen3.8 27B: 41.3 (#37)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1271 |

## Multilingual

- Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 53.7 (#60)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1337 | 1430 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1364 | 1504 |
| LMArena French | 1381 | 1465 |
| LMArena German | 1343 | 1438 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1271 | 1384 |
| LMArena Korean | 1284 | 1393 |
| LMArena Russian | 1343 | 1415 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1373 | 1448 |

## Instruction Following

- Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 75.8 (#53)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1335 | 1439 |

## Long Context

- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 44.3 (#70)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1335 | 1450 |

## Writing & Preference

- Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 65.8 (#43)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1362 | 1441 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1291 | 1384 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1338 | 1441 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1671 |

## FAQ

### Is Nova 2 Lite better than Qwen3.8 27B?

Qwen3.8 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.0 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.8 27B?

Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 27B lists at $0.99 and $1.49.

### Is Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.8 27B better for coding?

Qwen3.8 27B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.5 versus 40.7 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 Qwen3.8 27B share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.8 27B has 31.