Llama 4 405B 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.
Updated
Llama 4 405B specs · Amazon Nova Lite specs- PriceAmazon Nova Lite
Amazon Nova Lite publishes pricing ($0.24 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 405B does not.
- Context windowAmazon Nova Lite
Amazon Nova Lite accepts 300K tokens vs 256K, 1.2× 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.
- ModalitiesTie
Both handle text, vision.
- OpennessLlama 4 405B
Llama 4 405B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License); Amazon Nova Lite is API-only.
On balance Amazon Nova Lite edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Llama 4 405B's 1. Amazon Nova Lite publishes pricing ($0.24 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 405B does not. Amazon Nova Lite accepts 300K tokens vs 256K, 1.2× the room for long documents and codebases.
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. Both target the same set of modalities (text, vision), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Llama 4 405B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License); Amazon Nova Lite is API-only.
Llama 4 405B is the newer of the two, released 4 months after Amazon Nova Lite, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Llama 4 405B is usually picked for open source llm and fine tuning 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 | Llama 4 405B | Amazon Nova Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | Other |
| Released | Apr 2025 | Dec 2024 |
| Modalities | text, vision | text, vision |
| Context window | 256K 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 | 2024-12 | , |
| Open weights | Yes (Llama 4 Community License) | 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.
- Llama 4 405BPricing 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.
Llama 4 405B fits when…
- Strongest open-weight model at launch
- Multimodal (text + vision)
- Wide hosting availability
- Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Llama 4 Community License).
Amazon Nova Lite fits when…
- Very cheap
- AWS-native
- Multimodal
Consider Llama 4 70B
Meta's mid-tier Llama 4, the practical workhorse for self-hosted deployments.
Frequently asked
Is Llama 4 405B 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 256K for Llama 4 405B.Is Llama 4 405B or Amazon Nova Lite better for coding?
Both Llama 4 405B 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?
Llama 4 405B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License). Amazon Nova Lite is API-only.When were Llama 4 405B and Amazon Nova Lite released?
Llama 4 405B was released by Meta on 2025-04-05. Amazon Nova Lite was released by Other on 2024-12-03.
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