Nova 2 Lite vs Gemini 3 Flash Preview
Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads Nova 2 Lite on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 26.3 to 13.4, and Nova 2 Lite costs 1.2x less per output token ($2.50 vs $3.00 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 2 benchmarks have a result for both.
Nova 2 Lite or Gemini 3 Flash Preview: which to pick
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a coding score, 43.7 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 1.2x cheaper ($2.50 vs $3.00 per million).
- Shared results
- 2
- Nova 2 Lite only
- 29
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview only
- 69
- Like-for-like categories
- 2 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 Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Gemini 3 Flash Preview
Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads, 26.3 against 13.4.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a GPQA Diamond result, 87.9%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a AIME result, 95.6%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a MMLU Pro result, 88.6%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a Design Arena: websites result, 1196.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemini 3 Flash Preview
Gemini 3 Flash Preview takes 1.05M tokens against 1M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nova 2 Lite
Nova 2 Lite $0.0015, Gemini 3 Flash Preview $0.0020 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has the number, $0.37.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Nova 2 Lite not benchmarked, Gemini 3 Flash Preview 43.7 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 37.7 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- ALE-Bench: Nova 2 Lite 236.3 against Gemini 3 Flash Preview 1367.2, 37.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Nova 2 Lite $2.50 against Gemini 3 Flash Preview $3.00 per million output tokens, 1.2x apart.
- Context window
- Nova 2 Lite takes 1M tokens, Gemini 3 Flash Preview 1.05M.
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 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 1 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 2 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index01
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | Not measured | 75.8% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| AA Coding Index | 23.0 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 85.6% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 75.0% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 20.2% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 6.4% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 53.9% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 90.8% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 38.6% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Terminal-Bench | Not measured | 64.3% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| GSO-Bench | Not measured | 9.8% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 61.6% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ALE-Bench | 236.3 | 1367.2 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1385 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1394 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 12.7% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 22 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 13.4 | 26.3 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index14 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | Not measured | 1110 | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | Not measured | 1063 | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | Not measured | 1090 | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | Not measured | 1050 | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | Not measured | 1161 | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | Not measured | 1036 | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 42.5% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 11.8% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 18.3% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 26.0% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 80.4% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| BALROG | Not measured | 48.1% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| DeepResearch Bench | Not measured | 49.8% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Not measured | $3,635 | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 27 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index14 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 87.9% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 87.6% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 89.8% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 36.6% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 89.4% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ARC-AGI | Not measured | 84.7% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | Not measured | 33.6% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| SimpleBench | Not measured | 61.1% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 39.0% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 26.0% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| VPCT | Not measured | 72.6% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1364 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1359 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1385 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 95.6% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | Not measured | 93.3% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 97.0 | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 97.0% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 95.6% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 51.2% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | Not measured | 17.1% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 15.0% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1359 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1369 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index16 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 88.6% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 86.9% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 55.8% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 66.4% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 73.9% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 68.7% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | Not measured | 95.8% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 55.9% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 89.0% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 66.8% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| GeoBench | Not measured | 88.0% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1382 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1386 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1359 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1369 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | Not measured | 63.4% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | Not measured | 1196 | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | Not measured | 1166 | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | Not measured | 1184 | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | Not measured | 1189 | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index24 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 51.8% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 69.9% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 52.2% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 78.0% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 78.0% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| DTBench | Not measured | 89.1% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 43.1% | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMArena Text | 1362 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1335 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1292 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1385 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1337 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1364 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1343 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1273 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1281 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1381 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1375 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1342 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1327 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1338 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1335 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1318 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1309 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 22 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | 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 | Google Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Amazon | |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | December 2, 2025 | December 17, 2025 |
| Context window | 1M | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.30 | $0.50 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.50 | $3.00 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 43.7 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $0.37 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Nova 2 Lite better than Gemini 3 Flash Preview for coding?
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a coding score, 43.7 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 1.2x cheaper ($2.50 vs $3.00 per million).
Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Gemini 3 Flash Preview?
Nova 2 Lite costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Gemini 3 Flash Preview costs $0.50 and $3.00. Cost per solved task is known for Gemini 3 Flash Preview only.
Which has the bigger context window, Nova 2 Lite or Gemini 3 Flash Preview?
Gemini 3 Flash Preview, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.
How many benchmarks is the Nova 2 Lite vs Gemini 3 Flash Preview comparison based on?
2 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Nova 2 Lite's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Gemini 3 Flash Preview's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.