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Amazon Nova Lite vs o4

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

Updated

Amazon Nova Lite specs · o4 specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceAmazon Nova Lite

    Amazon Nova Lite publishes pricing ($0.24 / 1M output tokens) while o4 does not.

  • Context windowAmazon Nova Lite

    Amazon Nova Lite accepts 300K tokens vs 200K, 1.5× 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.

  • OpennessTie

    Both are closed-weight, API-only.

On balance Amazon Nova Lite edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against o4's 0. Amazon Nova Lite publishes pricing ($0.24 / 1M output tokens) while o4 does not. Amazon Nova Lite accepts 300K tokens vs 200K, 1.5× 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. Both are closed-weight, API-only.

o4 is the newer of the two, released 13 months after Amazon Nova Lite, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Amazon Nova Lite is usually picked for customer support and cheapest llm workloads, while o4 sees more deployments in reasoning and math. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecAmazon Nova Liteo4
ProviderOtherOpenAI
ReleasedDec 2024Dec 2025
Modalitiestext, visiontext, vision
Context window300K tokens200K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.060 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Output · 1M$0.24 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsNoNo
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$0.540 vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$5.40 vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$10.44 vs ,

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).

Price calculator

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

  • Amazon Nova Lite$0.018
  • o4Pricing unavailable

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 Amazon Nova Lite if

Amazon Nova Lite fits when…

  • Very cheap
  • AWS-native
  • Multimodal
Pick o4 if

o4 fits when…

  • Exceptional performance on hard math and reasoning benchmarks
  • Good at multi-step planning and verification
  • Strong scientific reasoning
Don't want either?

Consider DBRX

Databricks' 132B MoE, a notable 2024 open-weight release tuned for enterprise.

See DBRX specsAmazon Nova Lite vs DBRXo4 vs DBRX

Frequently asked

  • Is Amazon Nova Lite or o4 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 200K for o4.
  • Is Amazon Nova Lite or o4 better for coding?
    Both Amazon Nova Lite and o4 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?
    Neither model ships open weights, both are accessible only via their respective providers' APIs.
  • When were Amazon Nova Lite and o4 released?
    Amazon Nova Lite was released by Other on 2024-12-03. o4 was released by OpenAI on 2025-12-15.
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