Noometry

Model comparison

Nova 2 Lite vs Qwen3.5 35B-A3B

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.0 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.

Nova 2 Lite Amazon

39.7

Rank #161 Confirmed

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B Alibaba (Qwen)

42.0

Rank #123 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B in 6 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in coding, where Nova 2 Lite leads 40.7 to 33.8.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Vectara Hallucination Rate: 5.1% for Nova 2 Lite and 10.5% for Qwen3.5 35B-A3B.
  • Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is cheaper at $0.25 / $2 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
  • Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
  • Qwen3.5 35B-A3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Nova 2 LiteQwen3.5 35B-A3B
ProviderAmazonAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index39.742.0
Released2025-12-012026-02-01
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M262K
Max output64K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.30$0.25
Output $ / M tokens$2.50$2
Results tracked1928

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Category by category

Coding Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 33.8 (#251)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Coding13851410
LMArena WebDev—1254
SciCode—29.3%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: —

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 35B-A3B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard27.1%—

Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 24.6 (#161)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Hard Prompts13641400
CritPt—0.6%
Chess Puzzles—10%
DTBench—80%
LMCA—29.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index—142.52

Math Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 39.9 (#97)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Math13591404
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions—56%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—70%

Knowledge Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 47.8 (#79)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 35B-A3B
Vectara Hallucination Rate5.1%10.5%
LMArena Expert13581408
GPQA Diamond—83.5%

Multilingual Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 50.0 (#127)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Non-English13371378
LMArena Chinese13641457
LMArena French13811412
LMArena German13431367
LMArena Japanese12711325
LMArena Korean12841356
LMArena Russian13431376
LMArena Spanish13731392

Instruction Following Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 72.8 (#128)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Instruction Following13351379

Long Context Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 42.4 (#127)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Longer Query13351389

Writing & Preference Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 57.9 (#124)

BenchmarkNova 2 LiteQwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Text13621395
LMArena Creative Writing12911346
LMArena Multi-Turn13381390

Frequently asked questions

Is Nova 2 Lite better than Qwen3.5 35B-A3B?

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.0 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.5 35B-A3B?

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.25 per million input tokens and $2 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

Is Nova 2 Lite or Qwen3.5 35B-A3B better for coding?

Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 33.8 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Nova 2 Lite and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B has 28.

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