Compare / Nova 2 Lite vs GLM 4.5 Air

Nova 2 Lite vs GLM 4.5 Air

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 17 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

Nova 2 Lite
Amazon · profile
GLM 4.5 Air
Z.ai · profile
Results compared
17
Shared sources
3

Nova 2 Lite or GLM 4.5 Air? The short answer

  • GLM 4.5 Air is cheaper: $0.32 against $0.85 per million tokens, 2.7 times less.
  • Nova 2 Lite scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 13.4 against 11.1.
  • On our business benchmarks, Nova 2 Lite ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge and sticking to the facts.
  • On our business benchmarks, GLM 4.5 Air ranks higher for writing.

At a glance

Nova 2 LiteGLM 4.5 Air
Price per million tokens$0.30 in · $2.50 out$0.14 in · $0.86 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.85$0.32
Cheapest host, blended$0.85 (Amazon Bedrock)$0.31 (Novita, BF16)
Intelligence Index13.411.1
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second210–
Context window1,000,000 tokens131,072 tokens
WeightsClosedOpen
Developer based inthe USChina

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 caseNova 2 LiteGLM 4.5 Air
Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 130 of 161 not measured
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 112 of 195 136 of 195
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 168 of 187 103 of 187
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 76 of 153 133 of 153

Every shared result

BenchmarkMetricNova 2 LiteGLM 4.5 Air
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedOverallArena rating 1,3801,395
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedBusiness, management and financeArena rating 1,3511,372
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedCreative writingArena rating 1,2691,327
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedExpert promptsArena rating 1,3541,390
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedInstruction followingArena rating 1,3271,361
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedOverallArena rating 1,3351,373
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedWriting, literature and languageArena rating 1,2981,341
Artificial AnalysisreportedArtificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score 13.411.1
Artificial AnalysisreportedGPQA Diamond% of questions 81.1%73.3%
Artificial AnalysisreportedHumanity's Last Exam% of questions 11.6%7.0%
Artificial AnalysisreportedIFBench% of instructions 70.7%37.6%
Artificial AnalysisreportedLong-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions 60.3%46.7%
Artificial AnalysisreportedTerminal-Bench Hard% of tasks 17.4%20.5%
Artificial AnalysisreportedΤ²-bench telecom% of tasks 75.7%46.5%
UGI LeaderboardreportedRequested-length error% off the requested word count 45.0%10.0%
UGI LeaderboardreportedStyle adherencescore from 0 to 1 0.350.33
UGI LeaderboardreportedWriting scorescore out of 100 23.547.0

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 GLM 4.5 Air?

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 sticking to the facts; GLM 4.5 Air ranks higher for writing.

Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or GLM 4.5 Air?

GLM 4.5 Air costs $0.32 per million tokens (three input to one output), against $0.85 for Nova 2 Lite.

Run Nova 2 Lite and GLM 4.5 Air on your own prompt

Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.