Head-to-head comparison
Nova 2 Lite (Amazon) and Nova Pro 1.0 (Amazon) compared on the ModelCap Index, API price, context window, provider availability, weight access and every public benchmark board they share. Figures are the same ones shown on the live rankings; nothing here is a hidden score.
Snapshot as of 22 September 2026
As of 22 September 2026, Nova 2 Lite holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#156 vs #188); Nova 2 Lite is 1.3× cheaper per output token ($2.50/1M vs $3.20/1M); and Nova 2 Lite offers the longer context window (1M vs 300K tokens).
Evidence: 2 public benchmark observations across 2 boards · 2 public benchmark observations across 2 boards. Prices are the lowest listed API offer per million tokens observed on the OpenRouter catalogue.
Scores are the sources' own published figures for each model's best evaluated configuration; ModelCap never re-runs a benchmark.
Want a different pairing? Open the interactive comparison tool to swap either model for any current ranked language model.
Nova 2 Lite ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 22 September 2026: #156 against #188. That is a capability ranking built from public benchmark evidence with published uncertainty; whether it is "better" for you also depends on price, context and where you can run it. Their published uncertainty intervals do not overlap, but the aggregate Index does not predict performance on every task; compare the relevant benchmark configurations before choosing.
Nova 2 Lite is cheaper on output tokens: $2.50/1M against $3.20/1M. Input tokens are $0.30/1M for Nova 2 Lite and $0.80/1M for Nova Pro 1.0. Prices are the lowest listed API offer ModelCap observed, in USD per million tokens. For 1,000 requests with 2,000 input and 500 output tokens each (2M input + 0.5M output), the listed-rate estimate is $1.85 for Nova 2 Lite versus $3.20 for Nova Pro 1.0. Nova 2 Lite costs 42.2% less in this scenario. This excludes caching, batch discounts, prompt-length tiers, tool charges and retries; verify the selected endpoint before budgeting.
Nova 2 Lite has the larger context window: 1M tokens against 300K.
Arena coding: Nova 2 Lite 1394, Nova Pro 1.0 1343 — Nova 2 Lite leads.
Nova 2 Lite: API only. Nova Pro 1.0: API only. Open weights mean the checkpoint can be downloaded and self-hosted under its licence; API-only models are available solely through hosted endpoints.
ModelCap currently lists 1 API provider for Nova 2 Lite and 1 for Nova Pro 1.0, from the OpenRouter catalogue snapshot the site serves; each model page lists the providers and their prices.
Every figure comes from the sealed ModelCap dataset published 22 September 2026; the page re-renders within a minute of each data refresh, and the ModelCap Index positions are the same ones shown on the live rankings.