Compare/Nova 2.0 Lite (medium) vs Gemini 2.5 Flash (Reasoning)

Nova 2.0 Lite (medium)vsGemini 2.5 Flash (Reasoning)

Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.

Amazon

Nova 2.0 Lite (medium)

Input
$0.3/M
Output
$2.5/M
Speed
173 tok/s
TTFT
19.51s
Google

Gemini 2.5 Flash (Reasoning)

Input
$0.3/M
Output
$2.5/M
Speed
218 tok/s
TTFT
12.92s

Winner by Category

Cheaper
Tie
Faster (tok/s)
Gemini 2.5 Flash (Reasoning)
Lower Latency
Gemini 2.5 Flash (Reasoning)
Benchmarks (6-6)
Tie

Pricing Comparison

MetricNova 2.0 Lite (medium)Gemini 2.5 Flash (Reasoning)
Input ($/M tokens)$0.3$0.3
Output ($/M tokens)$2.5$2.5
Cost for 1M input + 100K output tokens:
Nova 2.0 Lite (medium)$0.55
Gemini 2.5 Flash (Reasoning)$0.55

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
Nova 2.0 Lite (medium)
173 tok/s
Gemini 2.5 Flash (Reasoning)
218 tok/s
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
Nova 2.0 Lite (medium)
19.51s
Gemini 2.5 Flash (Reasoning)
12.92s

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
29.727.0
Coding Index
23.922.2
Math Index
88.773.3
GPQA Diamond
76.8%79.0%
MMLU-Pro
81.3%83.2%
LiveCodeBench
66.3%69.5%
AIME 2025
88.7%73.3%
MATH-500
98.1%
Humanity's Last Exam
8.6%11.1%
SciCode
36.8%39.4%
IFBench
68.5%50.3%
TerminalBench
17.4%13.6%
Nova 2.0 Lite (medium)6 wins
6 winsGemini 2.5 Flash (Reasoning)

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper, Nova 2.0 Lite (medium) or Gemini 2.5 Flash (Reasoning)?

Both models have similar pricing. Check the detailed breakdown above for input vs output token costs.

Which model performs better on benchmarks?

It's a tie — both models win 6 benchmarks each across 12 evaluated categories. See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.

Which is faster for real-time applications?

Gemini 2.5 Flash (Reasoning) generates tokens faster at 218 tok/s vs 173 tok/s. However, Gemini 2.5 Flash (Reasoning) has lower time-to-first-token (12.92s vs 19.51s).

When should I use Nova 2.0 Lite (medium) vs Gemini 2.5 Flash (Reasoning)?

Choose based on your priorities: both are similarly priced, both perform similarly on benchmarks, and Gemini 2.5 Flash (Reasoning) for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.