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Mistral Small 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

Mistral Small specs · Amazon Nova Lite specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceAmazon Nova Lite

    Amazon Nova Lite is roughly 2.5× cheaper on output tokens ($0.24 vs $0.60 per 1M).

  • Context windowAmazon Nova Lite

    Amazon Nova Lite accepts 300K tokens vs 128K, 2.3× 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 Mistral Small.

  • OpennessMistral Small

    Mistral Small ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Amazon Nova Lite is API-only.

On balance Amazon Nova Lite edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against Mistral Small's 1. Amazon Nova Lite is roughly 2.5× cheaper on output tokens ($0.24 vs $0.60 per 1M). Amazon Nova Lite accepts 300K tokens vs 128K, 2.3× 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, Mistral Small handles text while Amazon Nova Lite handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Mistral Small ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Amazon Nova Lite is API-only.

Amazon Nova Lite is the newer of the two, released 3 months after Mistral Small, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Mistral Small is usually picked for cheapest llm and fastest llm 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

SpecMistral SmallAmazon Nova Lite
ProviderMistralOther
ReleasedSep 2024Dec 2024
Modalitiestexttext, vision
Context window128K tokens300K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.20 / 1M tokens$0.060 / 1M tokens
Output · 1M$0.60 / 1M tokens$0.24 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsYes (Apache-2.0)No
API availableYesYes

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$1.50 vs $0.540
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$15.00 vs $5.40
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$33.60 vs $10.44

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $1.50 vs $0.540 per month, model B comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $15.00 vs $5.40 per month, model B comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $33.60 vs $10.44 per month, model B comes out ahead.

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Mistral Small$0.050
  • 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.

Benchmark scores not yet available. We only publish numbers we can source from official model cards or independent leaderboards, see methodology.
Pick Mistral Small if

Mistral Small fits when…

  • Apache-2.0 open-weight
  • Fast and cheap
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Apache-2.0).
Pick Amazon Nova Lite if

Amazon Nova Lite fits when…

  • Very cheap
  • AWS-native
  • Multimodal
  • Cost-sensitive workloads, 2.5× cheaper than Mistral Small on output tokens.
  • Long-context tasks, handles 300K tokens vs 128K for Mistral Small.
Don't want either?

Consider Mistral Large 2

Mistral's flagship API model, strong on code and reasoning, EU-friendly hosting.

See Mistral Large 2 specsMistral Small vs Mistral Large 2Amazon Nova Lite vs Mistral Large 2

Frequently asked

  • Is Mistral Small or Amazon Nova Lite cheaper?
    Amazon Nova Lite is cheaper at $0.24 / 1M tokens per million output tokens, vs $0.60 / 1M tokens for Mistral Small.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    Amazon Nova Lite accepts 300K tokens vs 128K for Mistral Small.
  • Is Mistral Small or Amazon Nova Lite better for coding?
    Both Mistral Small 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?
    Mistral Small ships open weights (Apache-2.0). Amazon Nova Lite is API-only.
  • When were Mistral Small and Amazon Nova Lite released?
    Mistral Small was released by Mistral on 2024-09-18. Amazon Nova Lite was released by Other on 2024-12-03.
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