Nova 2 Lite vs GPT-5 Nano
Nova 2 Lite leads GPT-5 Nano on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 13.4 to 13.0, and GPT-5 Nano costs 6.3x less per output token ($0.40 vs $2.50 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 28 benchmarks have a result for both.
Nova 2 Lite or GPT-5 Nano: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Nova 2 Lite for a larger context window (1M against 400K tokens).
- Shared results
- 28
- Nova 2 Lite only
- 3
- GPT-5 Nano only
- 59
- 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
Nova 2 Lite
Nova 2 Lite leads, 13.4 against 13.0.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only GPT-5 Nano has a GPQA Diamond result, 63.4%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only GPT-5 Nano has a AIME result, 81.2%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only GPT-5 Nano has a MMLU Pro result, 76.1%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only GPT-5 Nano has a Design Arena: websites result, 1101.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Nova 2 Lite
Nova 2 Lite takes 1M tokens against 400K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
GPT-5 Nano
Nova 2 Lite $0.0015, GPT-5 Nano $0.0003 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only GPT-5 Nano has the number, $0.109.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Nova 2 Lite not benchmarked, GPT-5 Nano not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Knowledge, 9.8 points apart on average over 4 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- LMArena Text: science: Nova 2 Lite 1382 against GPT-5 Nano 1318, 10.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Nova 2 Lite $2.50 against GPT-5 Nano $0.40 per million output tokens, 6.3x apart.
- Context window
- Nova 2 Lite takes 1M tokens, GPT-5 Nano 400K.
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 | GPT-5 Nano | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 2 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 3 | 0 | ||
| Math | 2 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 4 | 0 | ||
| General | 16 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 28 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index20
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | GPT-5 Nano | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | Not measured | 34.8% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| AA Coding Index | 23.0 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 70.2% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 78.9% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 17.4% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Terminal-Bench | Not measured | 21.8% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 38.1% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| ALE-Bench | 236.3 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1385 | 1351 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1394 | 1345 | Nova 2 Lite |
| Neither model has a result on the other 29 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | GPT-5 Nano | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 13.4 | 13.0 | Nova 2 Lite |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 139.2 | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | GPT-5 Nano | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 36.5% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) | Not measured | 51.4% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 39 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | GPT-5 Nano | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 63.4% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 70.9% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 67.6% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 9.5% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 69.4% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| ARC-AGI | Not measured | 20.7% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | Not measured | 2.6% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 22.0% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 9.0% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| VPCT | Not measured | 37.2% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1364 | 1328 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1359 | 1321 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1385 | 1338 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | Not measured | 1141 | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | Not measured | 1157 | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | Not measured | 62.2% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | GPT-5 Nano | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 81.2% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 93.8% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | Not measured | 89.3% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 83.7 | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 83.7% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 81.1% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 20.0% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | Not measured | 2.4% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 12.0% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| MATH level 5 | Not measured | 95.2% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1359 | 1317 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1369 | 1326 | Nova 2 Lite |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index40
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | GPT-5 Nano | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 76.1% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 50.1% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 52.6% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 67.4% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 53.6% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | Not measured | 93.3% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 30.4% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 78.0% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 11.7% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1382 | 1318 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1386 | 1335 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1359 | 1298 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1369 | 1311 | Nova 2 Lite |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | GPT-5 Nano | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | Not measured | 1101 | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | Not measured | 1067 | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | Not measured | 1045 | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | Not measured | 1056 | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | Not measured | 966 | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | Not measured | 1084 | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index160
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | GPT-5 Nano | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 30.4% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 72.9% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 67.6% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 45.0% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| DTBench | Not measured | 62.7% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 7.9% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Fiction.LiveBench | Not measured | 44.4% | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMArena Text | 1362 | 1320 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1335 | 1306 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1292 | 1249 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Vision | Not measured | 1159 | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1385 | 1321 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1337 | 1313 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1364 | 1356 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: German | 1343 | 1327 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1273 | 1227 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1281 | 1269 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: French | 1381 | Not measured | Only Nova 2 Lite measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1375 | 1360 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1342 | 1296 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1327 | 1314 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1338 | 1311 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1335 | 1312 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1318 | 1283 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1309 | 1268 | Nova 2 Lite |
| LMArena Vision: English | Not measured | 1170 | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | Not measured | 1176 | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | Not measured | 1152 | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | Not measured | 1110 | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | GPT-5 Nano | 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
GPT-5 Nano costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
GPT-5 Nano costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
GPT-5 Nano 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 | OpenAI GPT-5 Nano |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Amazon | OpenAI |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | December 2, 2025 | August 7, 2025 |
| Context window | 1M | 400K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.30 | $0.05 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.50 | $0.40 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $0.109 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Nova 2 Lite better than GPT-5 Nano for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Nova 2 Lite for a larger context window (1M against 400K tokens).
Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or GPT-5 Nano?
Nova 2 Lite costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; GPT-5 Nano costs $0.05 and $0.40. Cost per solved task is known for GPT-5 Nano only.
Which has the bigger context window, Nova 2 Lite or GPT-5 Nano?
Nova 2 Lite, with 1M tokens against 400K.
How many benchmarks is the Nova 2 Lite vs GPT-5 Nano comparison based on?
28 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Nova 2 Lite's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and GPT-5 Nano's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.