Model comparison
Mistral Large vs Nova 2 Lite
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 31.9 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 19 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Large scores higher in 1 category and Nova 2 Lite in 8 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Nova 2 Lite leads 37.5 to 18.2.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 38.4% for Mistral Large and 27.1% for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Mistral Large.
- Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Mistral Large has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 31.9 | 39.7 |
| Released | 2024-02-26 | 2025-12-01 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 131K | 1M |
| Max output | 16K | 64K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $6 | $2.50 |
| Results tracked | 51 | 19 |
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Category by category
Coding Nova 2 Lite leads
Mistral Large: 34.3 (#240), Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1277 | 1385 |
| SciCode | 36.2% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 30% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 47.1% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 38.3% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 264.7 | — |
| HumanEval+ | 62.2% | — |
| MBPP+ | 59.5% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Mistral Large leads
Mistral Large: 28.6 (#89), Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 38.4% | 27.1% |
Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads
Mistral Large: 15.8 (#310), Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1257 | 1364 |
| SimpleBench | 22.5% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 43.5% | — |
| DTBench | 65.1% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 50.1% | — |
| LMCA | 16.7% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 128.52 | — |
| ForecastBench | 57.1 | — |
| LiveBench | 48.4% | — |
Math Nova 2 Lite leads
Mistral Large: 18.2 (#291), Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1262 | 1359 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 8.5% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 28.1% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 42.5% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 50.3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 0.3% | — |
Knowledge Nova 2 Lite leads
Mistral Large: 30.1 (#230), Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.5% | 5.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1232 | 1358 |
| GPQA Diamond | 51.3% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 59.9% | — |
| Confabulations | 21.4% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 43.5% | — |
| MMLU | 80% | — |
Multilingual Nova 2 Lite leads
Mistral Large: 40.0 (#219), Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1237 | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1240 | 1364 |
| LMArena French | 1325 | 1381 |
| LMArena German | 1254 | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1188 | 1271 |
| LMArena Korean | 1202 | 1284 |
| LMArena Russian | 1257 | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1268 | 1373 |
Instruction Following Nova 2 Lite leads
Mistral Large: 67.9 (#191), Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1249 | 1335 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 67.9% | — |
| IFEval | 87.7% | — |
Long Context Nova 2 Lite leads
Mistral Large: 38.3 (#199), Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1261 | 1335 |
Writing & Preference Nova 2 Lite leads
Mistral Large: 40.7 (#242), Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1266 | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1243 | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1260 | 1338 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 69% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 985 | — |
| WildBench | 80.1% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 39.4% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Large better than Nova 2 Lite?
Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 31.9 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Large or Nova 2 Lite?
Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Mistral Large lists at $2 and $6.
Is Mistral Large or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?
Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 34.3 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Mistral Large and Nova 2 Lite share?
19 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Large has 51 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.