Compare / Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct vs Nova 2 Lite
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct vs Nova 2 Lite
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 19 results on 3 sources that measured both models.
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct or Nova 2 Lite? The short answer
- Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct is cheaper: $0.35 against $0.85 per million tokens, 2.4 times less.
- Nova 2 Lite scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 13.4 against 9.6.
- On our business benchmarks, Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct ranks higher for writing.
- On our business benchmarks, Nova 2 Lite ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge and sticking to the facts.
At a glance
| Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct | Nova 2 Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $0.10 in · $1.10 out | $0.30 in · $2.50 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $0.35 | $0.85 |
| Cheapest host, blended | $0.27 (Alibaba) | $0.85 (Amazon Bedrock) |
| Intelligence Index | 9.6 | 13.4 |
| Spring Prompt overall | – | – |
| Output speed, tokens a second | 180 | 210 |
| Context window | 262,144 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Weights | Open | Closed |
| Developer based in | China | the 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 models available today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. The better rank is in green.
| Use case | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls | not measured | 130 of 161 |
| Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge | 140 of 195 | 112 of 195 |
| WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality | 104 of 187 | 168 of 187 |
| Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers | 117 of 153 | 76 of 153 |
Every shared result
| Benchmark | Metric | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | OverallArena rating | 1,419 | 1,380 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Business, management and financeArena rating | 1,411 | 1,351 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Creative writingArena rating | 1,313 | 1,269 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Expert promptsArena rating | 1,399 | 1,354 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Instruction followingArena rating | 1,376 | 1,327 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | OverallArena rating | 1,399 | 1,335 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Writing, literature and languageArena rating | 1,342 | 1,298 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score | 9.60 | 13.4 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | GPQA Diamond% of questions | 73.8% | 81.1% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Humanity's Last Exam% of questions | 7.6% | 11.6% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | IFBench% of instructions | 39.7% | 70.7% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions | 52.7% | 60.3% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Output speedtokens per second | 180 | 210 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks | 7.6% | 17.4% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Time to first answer tokenseconds | 1.05 | 0.83 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Τ²-bench telecom% of tasks | 21.6% | 75.7% |
| UGI Leaderboardreported | Requested-length error% off the requested word count | 7.0% | 45.0% |
| UGI Leaderboardreported | Style adherencescore from 0 to 1 | 0.31 | 0.35 |
| UGI Leaderboardreported | Writing scorescore out of 100 | 41.8 | 23.5 |
Bold green marks the better value on that metric. Where a source reports ranges that overlap, the difference may not be meaningful; see the benchmark page for ranges.
Quick answers
Is Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct better than Nova 2 Lite?
It depends on the task. Among models available today, on our benchmarks and licensed sources, Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct ranks higher for writing; Nova 2 Lite ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge and sticking to the facts.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct or Nova 2 Lite?
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct costs $0.35 per million tokens (three input to one output), against $0.85 for Nova 2 Lite.
Which is faster, Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct or Nova 2 Lite?
Nova 2 Lite writes about 210 tokens a second on its usual API, against 180 for Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct (Artificial Analysis).
Run Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct and Nova 2 Lite on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.