Aya Expanse 8B vs Amazon Nova Lite
A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.
- PriceAmazon Nova Lite
Amazon Nova Lite publishes pricing ($0.24 / 1M output tokens) while Aya Expanse 8B does not.
- Context windowAmazon Nova Lite
Amazon Nova Lite accepts 300K tokens vs 8.2K, 36.6× the room for long documents and codebases.
- BenchmarksTie
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.
- ModalitiesAmazon Nova Lite
Amazon Nova Lite supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Aya Expanse 8B.
- OpennessAya Expanse 8B
Aya Expanse 8B ships open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0); Amazon Nova Lite is API-only.
On balance Amazon Nova Lite edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against Aya Expanse 8B's 1. Amazon Nova Lite publishes pricing ($0.24 / 1M output tokens) while Aya Expanse 8B does not. Amazon Nova Lite accepts 300K tokens vs 8.2K, 36.6× the room for long documents and codebases.
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, Aya Expanse 8B handles text while Amazon Nova Lite handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Aya Expanse 8B ships open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0); Amazon Nova Lite is API-only.
Amazon Nova Lite is the newer of the two, released 1 months after Aya Expanse 8B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Aya Expanse 8B is usually picked for multilingual and translation workloads, while Amazon Nova Lite sees more deployments in customer support and cheapest llm. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.
Side-by-side specs
| Spec | Aya Expanse 8B | Amazon Nova Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Cohere | Other |
| Released | Oct 2024 | Dec 2024 |
| Modalities | text | text, vision |
| Context window | 8.2K tokens | 300K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | Pricing not published | $0.060 / 1M tokens |
| Output · 1M | Pricing not published | $0.24 / 1M tokens |
| Knowledge cutoff | , | , |
| Open weights | Yes (CC-BY-NC 4.0) | No |
| API available | Yes | Yes |
Pricing at scale
What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.
- Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day, vs $0.540
- Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $5.40
- RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $10.44
Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates).
Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.
- Aya Expanse 8BPricing unavailable
- Amazon Nova Lite$0.018
Benchmarks compared
Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.
Aya Expanse 8B fits when…
- Multilingual at small size
- Strong cross-lingual transfer
- Efficient on commodity GPUs
- Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0).
Amazon Nova Lite fits when…
- Very cheap
- AWS-native
- Multimodal
- Long-context tasks, handles 300K tokens vs 8.2K for Aya Expanse 8B.
- Multimodal needs covering vision.
Consider Command R+ (08-2024)
Cohere's flagship optimized for RAG and tool use in enterprise settings.
Frequently asked
Is Aya Expanse 8B or Amazon Nova Lite cheaper?
Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.Which has the larger context window?
Amazon Nova Lite accepts 300K tokens vs 8.2K for Aya Expanse 8B.Is Aya Expanse 8B or Amazon Nova Lite better for coding?
Both Aya Expanse 8B and Amazon Nova Lite are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.Are either of these models open source?
Aya Expanse 8B ships open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0). Amazon Nova Lite is API-only.When were Aya Expanse 8B and Amazon Nova Lite released?
Aya Expanse 8B was released by Cohere on 2024-10-23. Amazon Nova Lite was released by Other on 2024-12-03.
The week's AI launches, in your inbox.
One short email every Friday, new models, leaks, and quietly-shipped APIs you missed.