Nova 2 Lite vs Claude Opus 4.1
Claude Opus 4.1 leads Nova 2 Lite on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 22.8 to 13.4, and Nova 2 Lite costs 30.0x less per output token ($2.50 vs $75.00 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 29 benchmarks have a result for both.
Nova 2 Lite or Claude Opus 4.1: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Nova 2 Lite for output tokens 30.0x cheaper ($2.50 vs $75.00 per million) and a larger context window (1M against 200K tokens).
- Shared results
- 29
- Nova 2 Lite only
- 2
- Claude Opus 4.1 only
- 44
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Neither has a coding score yet.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Opus 4.1
Claude Opus 4.1 leads, 22.8 against 13.4.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.1 has a GPQA Diamond result, 76.3%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.1 has a AIME result, 78.2%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.1 has a MMLU Pro result, 87.9%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.1 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1177.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Nova 2 Lite
Nova 2 Lite takes 1M tokens against 200K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nova 2 Lite
Nova 2 Lite $0.0015, Claude Opus 4.1 $0.052 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Nova 2 Lite not benchmarked, Claude Opus 4.1 not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- General, 14.1 points apart on average over 17 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- LMArena Text: creative writing: Nova 2 Lite 1292 against Claude Opus 4.1 1412, 19.9 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Nova 2 Lite $2.50 against Claude Opus 4.1 $75.00 per million output tokens, 30.0x apart.
- Context window
- Nova 2 Lite takes 1M tokens, Claude Opus 4.1 200K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Nova 2 Lite | Bars | Claude Opus 4.1 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 2 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 3 | ||
| Math | 0 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 4 | ||
| General | 0 | 17 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 29 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index02
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1390 | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 23.0 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 66.5% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Terminal-Bench | Not measured | 38.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 45.9% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Cybench | Not measured | 42.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 236.3 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1385 | 1479 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1394 | 1456 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1399 | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 4.6% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 28 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 13.4 | 22.8 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 144.1 | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index3 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| METR time horizons | Not measured | 66.8% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| GDPval | Not measured | 43.6% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| DeepResearch Bench | Not measured | 48.3% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 38 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index03
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 76.3% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 77.5% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 77.3% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| SimpleBench | Not measured | 60.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 21.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| EBR-bench | Not measured | 7.9% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| VPCT | Not measured | 35.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1364 | 1442 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1359 | 1438 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1385 | 1451 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 78.2% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 95.4% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | Not measured | 94.4% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 68.9% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 12.6% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | Not measured | 2.4% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1359 | 1431 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1369 | 1434 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 87.9% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 83.5% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 73.7% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 61.1% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | Not measured | 93.6% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 47.2% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1382 | 1422 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1386 | 1416 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1359 | 1421 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1369 | 1406 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | Not measured | 40.4% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | Not measured | 1177 | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | Not measured | 1165 | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | Not measured | 1171 | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | Not measured | 1166 | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | Not measured | 1153 | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | Not measured | 1171 | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | Not measured | 1152 | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 1167 | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index017
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 31.4% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 73.9% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| DTBench | Not measured | 80.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 37.1% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Creative writing (Lech Mazur) | Not measured | 84.7% | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1362 | 1419 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1335 | 1435 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1292 | 1412 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: English | 1385 | 1433 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1337 | 1405 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1364 | 1427 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: German | 1343 | 1413 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1273 | 1377 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1281 | 1381 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: French | 1381 | 1433 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1375 | 1448 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1342 | 1422 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1327 | 1413 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1338 | 1444 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1335 | 1455 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1318 | 1418 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1309 | 1398 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nova 2 Lite costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Nova 2 Lite costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Nova 2 Lite costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Amazon Nova 2 Lite | Anthropic Claude Opus 4.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Amazon | Anthropic |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | December 2, 2025 | August 5, 2025 |
| Context window | 1M | 200K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.30 | $15.00 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.50 | $75.00 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Nova 2 Lite better than Claude Opus 4.1 for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Nova 2 Lite for output tokens 30.0x cheaper ($2.50 vs $75.00 per million) and a larger context window (1M against 200K tokens).
Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Claude Opus 4.1?
Nova 2 Lite costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 4.1 costs $15.00 and $75.00. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Nova 2 Lite or Claude Opus 4.1?
Nova 2 Lite, with 1M tokens against 200K.
How many benchmarks is the Nova 2 Lite vs Claude Opus 4.1 comparison based on?
29 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Nova 2 Lite's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Claude Opus 4.1's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.