Compare / Nova 2 Lite vs gpt-oss-20b
Nova 2 Lite vs gpt-oss-20b
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 20 results on 3 sources that measured both models.
Nova 2 Lite or gpt-oss-20b? The short answer
- gpt-oss-20b is cheaper: $0.060 against $0.85 per million tokens, 14 times less.
- Nova 2 Lite scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 13.4 against 10.0.
- gpt-oss-20b writes faster: 249 tokens a second against 210.
- On our business benchmarks, Nova 2 Lite ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge and writing.
- On our business benchmarks, gpt-oss-20b ranks higher for agents and tool use.
At a glance
| Nova 2 Lite | gpt-oss-20b | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $0.30 in · $2.50 out | $0.030 in · $0.15 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $0.85 | $0.060 |
| Cheapest host, blended | $0.85 (Amazon Bedrock) | $0.036 (Darkbloom, FP8) |
| Intelligence Index | 13.4 | 10.0 |
| Spring Prompt overall | – | – |
| Output speed, tokens a second | 210 | 249 |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 131,072 tokens |
| Weights | Closed | Open |
| Developer based in | the US | 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 | Nova 2 Lite | gpt-oss-20b |
|---|---|---|
| Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls | 130 of 161 | 124 of 161 |
| Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge | 112 of 195 | 134 of 195 |
| WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality | 168 of 187 | 170 of 187 |
| Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers | 76 of 153 | not measured |
Every shared result
| Benchmark | Metric | Nova 2 Lite | gpt-oss-20b |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Business, management and financeArena rating | 1,351 | 1,323 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Creative writingArena rating | 1,269 | 1,240 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Expert promptsArena rating | 1,354 | 1,314 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Instruction followingArena rating | 1,327 | 1,281 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | OverallArena rating | 1,335 | 1,318 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Writing, literature and languageArena rating | 1,298 | 1,275 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score | 23.0 | 20.7 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score | 13.4 | 10.0 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | GPQA Diamond% of questions | 81.1% | 68.8% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Humanity's Last Exam% of questions | 11.6% | 11.0% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | IFBench% of instructions | 70.7% | 65.1% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions | 60.3% | 34.7% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Output speedtokens per second | 210 | 249 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks | 16.1% | 13.9% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks | 17.4% | 10.6% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Time to first answer tokenseconds | 0.83 | 8.49 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Τ²-bench telecom% of tasks | 75.7% | 60.2% |
| UGI Leaderboardreported | Requested-length error% off the requested word count | 45.0% | 98.0% |
| UGI Leaderboardreported | Style adherencescore from 0 to 1 | 0.35 | 0.31 |
| UGI Leaderboardreported | Writing scorescore out of 100 | 23.5 | 24.6 |
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 Nova 2 Lite better than gpt-oss-20b?
It depends on the task. Among models available today, on our benchmarks and licensed sources, Nova 2 Lite ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge and writing; gpt-oss-20b ranks higher for agents and tool use.
Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or gpt-oss-20b?
gpt-oss-20b costs $0.060 per million tokens (three input to one output), against $0.85 for Nova 2 Lite.
Which is faster, Nova 2 Lite or gpt-oss-20b?
gpt-oss-20b writes about 249 tokens a second on its usual API, against 210 for Nova 2 Lite (Artificial Analysis).
Run Nova 2 Lite and gpt-oss-20b on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.