Nova Lite 1.0 vs Gemini 4 Argon
Updated October 21, 2026. 26 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
vs boards won of 26 shared
Decision reading
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a coding score, 81.0 on the Vibe Coding Index; Nova Lite 1.0 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Nova Lite 1.0 has the edge where output tokens cost 41.7x less.
Model ANova Lite 1.0AmazonNot benchmarkedNo coding benchmarkNo cost per solved taskModel BGemini 4 ArgonGoogle81.0/1005 independent benchmarksNo cost per solved task
- Shared results
- 26
- Nova Lite 1.0 only
- 15
- Gemini 4 Argon only
- 66
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 of 9
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.
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 4 Argon has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Gemini 4 Argon
Gemini 4 Argon leads, 52.6 against 6.7.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a Design Arena: websites result, 1315.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a Vals Index result, 69.2%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemini 4 Argon
Gemini 4 Argon takes 1.05M tokens against 300K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nova Lite 1.0
Nova Lite 1.0 $0.0002, Gemini 4 Argon $0.0070 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Nova Lite 1.0 not benchmarked, Gemini 4 Argon 81.0 from 5 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Reasoning, 54.8 points apart on average over 4 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- LMArena Text: Chinese: Nova Lite 1.0 1225 against Gemini 4 Argon 1611, 62.4 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Nova Lite 1.0 $0.24 against Gemini 4 Argon $10.00 per million output tokens, 41.7x apart.
- Context window
- Nova Lite 1.0 takes 300K tokens, Gemini 4 Argon 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 Lite 1.0 | Bars | Gemini 4 Argon | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 2 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 4 | ||
| Math | 0 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 4 | ||
| General | 0 | 13 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 26 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index02
| Benchmark | Nova Lite 1.0 | Gemini 4 Argon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | Not measured | 89.7% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1678 | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 57.6% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 91.9% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 68.2% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 2.5% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | Not measured | 100.0% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 57.7% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | Not measured | 56.0% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 21.2% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 77.9% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 16.7% | Not measured | Only Nova Lite 1.0 measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 61.8% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 0.8% | Not measured | Only Nova Lite 1.0 measured |
| FrontierCode | Not measured | 47.5% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| FrontierSWE | Not measured | 55.0% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 2100.1 | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1239 | 1546 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1241 | 1556 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1692 | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1643 | Only Gemini 4 Argon 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 Lite 1.0 | Gemini 4 Argon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 6.7 | 52.6 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 166.4 | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index19 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova Lite 1.0 | Gemini 4 Argon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | Not measured | 1147 | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench research | Not measured | 83.1% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench browser | Not measured | 92.0% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | Not measured | 69.9% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 44.3% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 65.4% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 44.6% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 54.8% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 27.1% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 75.2% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 76.3% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | Not measured | 44.3% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vals Science Index | Not measured | 55.4% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Time Horizon Index (Vals AI) | Not measured | 52.5% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| CUA-bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 4.8% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Robo-bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.8% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 17.5% | Not measured | Only Nova Lite 1.0 measured |
| APEX-Agents | Not measured | 82.4% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Not measured | $13,718 | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 20 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | Nova Lite 1.0 | Gemini 4 Argon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench reasoning | Not measured | 95.1% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | Not measured | 45.5% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 43.3% | Not measured | Only Nova Lite 1.0 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 4.3% | 57.1% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 96.4% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ARC-AGI | Not measured | 98.5% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | Not measured | 91.3% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 59.0% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 64.0% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| EBR-bench | Not measured | 64.8% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1220 | 1546 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1201 | 1550 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1226 | 1548 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Nova Lite 1.0 | Gemini 4 Argon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | 7.0 | Not measured | Only Nova Lite 1.0 measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 7.0% | Not measured | Only Nova Lite 1.0 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 100.0% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 86.0% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | Not measured | 78.0% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 99.0% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1227 | 1536 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1235 | 1557 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| 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 Lite 1.0 | Gemini 4 Argon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 88.3% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 58.8% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 59.0% | Not measured | Only Nova Lite 1.0 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 76.0% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MMLU | 77.0% | Not measured | Only Nova Lite 1.0 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1232 | 1548 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1213 | 1555 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1238 | 1548 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1219 | 1525 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova Lite 1.0 | Gemini 4 Argon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | Not measured | 1315 | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | Not measured | 1331 | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | Not measured | 1376 | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | Not measured | 1337 | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | Not measured | 1389 | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | Not measured | 1328 | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench design | Not measured | 73.7% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index013
| Benchmark | Nova Lite 1.0 | Gemini 4 Argon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 69.2% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | Not measured | 85.2% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 69.8% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 53.6% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 87.4% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| IFBench | 34.1% | Not measured | Only Nova Lite 1.0 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 19.0% | 79.7% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| DTBench | Not measured | 97.6% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 63.7% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Furniture assembly | Not measured | 72.5% | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text | 1229 | 1532 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1205 | 1534 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1197 | 1527 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Vision | 990 | Not measured | Only Nova Lite 1.0 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1243 | 1538 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1208 | 1522 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1225 | 1611 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: German | 1229 | Not measured | Only Nova Lite 1.0 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1153 | Not measured | Only Nova Lite 1.0 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1153 | Not measured | Only Nova Lite 1.0 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1238 | Not measured | Only Nova Lite 1.0 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1226 | 1503 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1216 | 1534 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1199 | 1556 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1234 | 1547 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1211 | 1529 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1176 | 1527 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Vision: English | 999 | Not measured | Only Nova Lite 1.0 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nova Lite 1.0 | Gemini 4 Argon | 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 Lite 1.0$0.0002Fits in one request
Gemini 4 Argon$0.0070Fits in one request
Nova Lite 1.0 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Nova Lite 1.0$0.0037Fits in one request
Gemini 4 Argon$0.130Fits in one request
Nova Lite 1.0 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Nova Lite 1.0$0.014Fits in one request
Gemini 4 Argon$0.500Fits in one request
Nova Lite 1.0 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 Lite 1.0 | Google Gemini 4 Argon |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Amazon | |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | December 5, 2024 | October 13, 2026 |
| Context window | 300K | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.06 | $2.00 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.24 | $10.00 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 81.0 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 5 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Nova Lite 1.0 better than Gemini 4 Argon for coding?
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a coding score, 81.0 on the Vibe Coding Index; Nova Lite 1.0 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Nova Lite 1.0 has the edge where output tokens cost 41.7x less.
Which is cheaper, Nova Lite 1.0 or Gemini 4 Argon?
Nova Lite 1.0 costs $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.24 per million output tokens; Gemini 4 Argon costs $2.00 and $10.00. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Nova Lite 1.0 or Gemini 4 Argon?
Gemini 4 Argon, with 1.05M tokens against 300K.
How many benchmarks is the Nova Lite 1.0 vs Gemini 4 Argon comparison based on?
26 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Nova Lite 1.0's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Gemini 4 Argon's on 5. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.