# Nova 2 Lite vs Qwen3 8B

> Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 2.7× 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-qwen3-8b
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 2

## Summary

- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3 8B in 1 category; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Nova 2 Lite leads 27.5 to 16.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 27.1% for Nova 2 Lite and 42.6% for Qwen3 8B.
- Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Qwen3 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.7 | 33.7 |
| Rank | 161 | 238 |
| Context | 1M | 131K |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | $0.18 |
| Output $/M | $2.50 | $0.70 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)
- Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 22.6% |
| LMArena Coding | 1385 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)
- Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | 42.6% |

## Reasoning

- Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)
- Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1364 | — |
| DTBench | — | 59.7% |
| LMCA | — | 8.8% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 136.17 |

## Math

- Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)
- Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 56.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1359 | — |

## Knowledge

- Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)
- Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.1% | 4.8% |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 56.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1358 | — |

## Multilingual

- Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| 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)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1335 | — |

## Long Context

- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)
- Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 62.1% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1335 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1362 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1291 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1338 | — |

## FAQ

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

Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 2.7× 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 Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

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

Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 34.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Nova 2 Lite and Qwen3 8B share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.