Nova 2 Lite vs Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 leads Nova 2 Lite on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 41.8 to 13.4, and Nova 2 Lite costs 10.0x less per output token ($2.50 vs $25.00 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 30 benchmarks have a result for both.
vs boards won of 30 shared
Nova 2 Lite or Claude Opus 4.8: which to pick
Only Claude Opus 4.8 has a coding score, 65.0 on the Vibe Coding Index; Nova 2 Lite has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Nova 2 Lite for output tokens 10.0x cheaper ($2.50 vs $25.00 per million).
Model ANova 2 LiteAmazonNot benchmarkedNo coding benchmarkNo cost per solved taskModel BClaude Opus 4.8Anthropic65.0/1006 independent benchmarks$2.17 per solved task
- Shared results
- 30
- Nova 2 Lite only
- 1
- Claude Opus 4.8 only
- 100
- 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
Only Claude Opus 4.8 has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 leads, 41.8 against 13.4.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.8 has a AA Agentic Index result, 41.9.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.8 has a GPQA Diamond result, 92.4%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.8 has a MMLU Pro result, 89.6%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.8 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1259.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
No call
Both take 1M tokens.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nova 2 Lite
Nova 2 Lite $0.0015, Claude Opus 4.8 $0.018 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.8 has the number, $2.17.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Nova 2 Lite not benchmarked, Claude Opus 4.8 65.0 from 6 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Intelligence, 28.4 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- AA Coding Index: Nova 2 Lite 23.0 against Claude Opus 4.8 74.3, 51.3 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Nova 2 Lite $2.50 against Claude Opus 4.8 $25.00 per million output tokens, 10.0x apart.
- Context window
- Both take 1M tokens.
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 4.8 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 3 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 3 | ||
| Math | 0 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 4 | ||
| General | 0 | 17 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 30 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index03
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.8 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | Not measured | 77.3% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1556 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 23.0 | 74.3 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 87.8% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 88.6% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 23.2% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 82.7% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 47.3% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 1.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 71.9% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 59.2% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 54.4% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 58.3% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| FrontierCode | Not measured | 46.5% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| GSO-Bench | Not measured | 47.1% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 82.9% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 236.3 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1385 | 1490 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1394 | 1488 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1557 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1543 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 12.3% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.8 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 13.4 | 41.8 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 159.0 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index27 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.8 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 41.9 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | Not measured | 1233 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | Not measured | 1249 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | Not measured | 1222 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | Not measured | 1232 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | Not measured | 1231 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | Not measured | 1238 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | Not measured | 1221 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | Not measured | 1227 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | Not measured | 1270 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LiveBench research | Not measured | 81.8% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LiveBench browser | Not measured | 96.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | Not measured | 48.3% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 53.9% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 30.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 43.8% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 69.4% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | Not measured | 4.3% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Time Horizon Index (Vals AI) | Not measured | 11.8% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 94.4% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| APEX-Agents | Not measured | 48.9% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Remote Labor Index | Not measured | 8.3% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| OSWorld 2.0 | Not measured | 20.6% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| DeepResearch Bench | Not measured | 50.2% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| PostTrainBench | Not measured | 33.8% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Not measured | $5,787 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Search | Not measured | 1204 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index03
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.8 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 92.4% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | Not measured | 89.2% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 86.6% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 92.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 48.7% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 91.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| ARC-AGI | Not measured | 92.5% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | Not measured | 72.1% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| SimpleBench | Not measured | 64.8% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 52.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 36.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| EBR-bench | Not measured | 28.6% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1364 | 1482 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1359 | 1503 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1385 | 1487 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | Not measured | 1315 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | Not measured | 1337 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | Not measured | 88.8% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.8 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 98.3% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 80.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | Not measured | 56.1% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 69.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1359 | 1486 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1369 | 1497 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.8 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 89.6% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 83.6% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 66.7% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 75.6% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 69.9% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 53.2% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 53.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1382 | 1477 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1386 | 1464 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1359 | 1477 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1369 | 1458 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | Not measured | 53.5% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.8 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | Not measured | 1259 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | Not measured | 1257 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | Not measured | 1264 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | Not measured | 1240 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | Not measured | 1223 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | Not measured | 1255 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | Not measured | 1194 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 1277 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LiveBench design | Not measured | 78.8% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index017
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.8 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | Not measured | 66.0% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 68.1% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 54.8% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 85.8% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 70.9% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 62.2% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 77.7% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| DTBench | Not measured | 94.9% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 57.5% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Surface Evolver Bench | Not measured | 87.5% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Furniture assembly | Not measured | 42.5% | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1362 | 1461 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1335 | 1476 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1292 | 1454 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Vision | Not measured | 1294 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1385 | 1468 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1337 | 1450 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1364 | 1506 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: German | 1343 | 1472 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1273 | 1442 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1281 | 1431 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: French | 1381 | 1481 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1375 | 1465 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1342 | 1474 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1327 | 1459 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1338 | 1476 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1335 | 1483 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1318 | 1461 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1309 | 1440 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LMArena Vision: English | Not measured | 1293 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | Not measured | 1346 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | Not measured | 1303 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | Not measured | 1282 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | Not measured | 1301 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Document | Not measured | 1475 | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Claude Opus 4.8 | 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$0.0015Fits in one request
Claude Opus 4.8$0.018Fits in one request
Nova 2 Lite costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Nova 2 Lite$0.022Fits in one request
Claude Opus 4.8$0.325Fits in one request
Nova 2 Lite costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Nova 2 Lite$0.085Fits in one request
Claude Opus 4.8$1.25Fits in one request
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 4.8 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Amazon | Anthropic |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | December 2, 2025 | May 27, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.30 | $5.00 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.50 | $25.00 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 65.0 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 6 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $2.17 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Nova 2 Lite better than Claude Opus 4.8 for coding?
Only Claude Opus 4.8 has a coding score, 65.0 on the Vibe Coding Index; Nova 2 Lite has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Nova 2 Lite for output tokens 10.0x cheaper ($2.50 vs $25.00 per million).
Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Claude Opus 4.8?
Nova 2 Lite costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 4.8 costs $5.00 and $25.00. Cost per solved task is known for Claude Opus 4.8 only.
Which has the bigger context window, Nova 2 Lite or Claude Opus 4.8?
Neither: both take 1M tokens.
How many benchmarks is the Nova 2 Lite vs Claude Opus 4.8 comparison based on?
30 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 4.8's on 6. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.