Compare / Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs Nova 2 Lite

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs Nova 2 Lite

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 21 results on 4 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-35B-A3B Released 24 Feb 2026 · $0.16 in · $1.30 out
AmazonNova 2 Lite Released 29 Oct 2025 · $0.30 in · $2.50 out
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B wins 19Nova 2 Lite wins 2

Of the 21 results both models have, the better value on each. Results whose reported ranges overlap are too close to call.

Results as of 9 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-09-dd620e778ac5). See also Alibaba vs Amazon, every model from both labs.

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Nova 2 Lite? The short answer

Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 19.3 against 13.4) and costs less.

  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is cheaper: $0.45 against $0.85 per million tokens, 47% less.
  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 19.3 against 13.4.
  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is newer: released 24 Feb 2026, against 29 Oct 2025 for Nova 2 Lite.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.5-35B-A3B does better for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge and writing.

Head to head

19.3
Intelligence Index
13.4
$0.45
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$0.85
262,144
Context window, tokens
1,000,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-35B-A3BNova 2 Lite
Price per million tokens$0.16 in · $1.30 out$0.30 in · $2.50 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.45$0.85
Cheapest host, blended$0.25 (Darkbloom, FP4)$0.85 (Amazon Bedrock)
Intelligence Index19.313.4
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second–217
Context window262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens
Released24 Feb 2026 (newer)29 Oct 2025
WeightsOpenClosed
Developer based inChinathe US

Prices are the developer's list price where we have read it, otherwise the typical host on OpenRouter; see every model's price. Intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis.

Which is better for what

Each model's rank among the models on sale today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. Further right is better; the better rank is in green.

Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 116 of 164 133 of 164
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 92 of 198 116 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 108 of 188 169 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 112 of 152 73 of 152

Every shared result

Each model's best result on every measure both have, grouped by benchmark, with the setting that produced it. Under each measure, every model that benchmark has measured is a grey tick, best to the right, so you can see where the two sit in the field. The headline measures of each benchmark come first; the rest are under "Show all". Green marks the better value; where a source reports ranges that overlap, neither is marked.

MeasureQwen3.5-35B-A3BNova 2 Lite
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 147 · 214 of 387 measured 1,394 1,335
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 129 · 143 of 163 measured 1,407 1,380
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 139 · 186 of 380 measured 1,403 1,351
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 108 · 138 of 243 measured 19.3 13.4high reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 84 · 105 of 231 measured 84.5% 81.1%high reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 106 · 142 of 242 measured 21.0% 11.6%high reasoning
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 97 · 190 of 230 measured 42.6think-prefill reasoning 23.5no reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 83 · 200 of 230 measured 17.0%no reasoning 45.0%thinking reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 151 · 108 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.35no reasoning
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results
Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 62 · 10 of 104 measured 10.5% 5.1%
Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 31 · 45 of 104 measured 99.8% 99.6%
Show all 21 results (10 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-35B-A3BNova 2 Lite
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 163 · 248 of 385 measured 1,342 1,269
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 134 · 192 of 338 measured 1,419 1,352
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 140 · 199 of 387 measured 1,386 1,327
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 155 · 235 of 386 measured 1,363 1,298
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 6 results
Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 72 · 95 of 130 measured 40.8%no reasoning 16.1%high reasoning
Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 79 · 94 of 131 measured 37.0no reasoning 23.0high reasoning
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 39 · 50 of 195 measured 72.5% 70.7%high reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 99 · 139 of 233 measured 72.0% 60.3%high reasoning
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 74 · 100 of 190 measured 26.5% 17.4%medium reasoning
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 45 · 76 of 193 measured 89.2% 75.7%medium reasoning

Quick answers

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

Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 19.3 against 13.4) and costs less.

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

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is cheaper: $0.45 against $0.85 per million tokens, 47% less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Nova 2 Lite?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ranks 116 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 133 for Nova 2 Lite.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Nova 2 Lite?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ranks 92 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 116 for Nova 2 Lite.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Nova 2 Lite?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ranks 108 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 169 for Nova 2 Lite.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Nova 2 Lite?

Nova 2 Lite ranks 73 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 112 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Nova 2 Lite?

Nova 2 Lite: 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Run Qwen3.5-35B-A3B and Nova 2 Lite on your own prompt

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