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Amazon Nova Lite vs o4-mini

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-mini specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceAmazon Nova Lite

    Amazon Nova Lite is roughly 18.3× cheaper on output tokens ($0.24 vs $4.40 per 1M).

  • 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-mini's 0. Amazon Nova Lite is roughly 18.3× cheaper on output tokens ($0.24 vs $4.40 per 1M). 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-mini 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. Amazon Nova Lite is usually picked for customer support and cheapest llm workloads, while o4-mini 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-mini
ProviderOtherOpenAI
ReleasedDec 2024Apr 2025
Modalitiestext, visiontext, vision
Context window300K tokens200K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.060 / 1M tokens$1.10 / 1M tokens
Output · 1M$0.24 / 1M tokens$4.40 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff,2024-06
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 $9.90
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$5.40 vs $99.00
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$10.44 vs $191

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $0.540 vs $9.90 per month, model A comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $5.40 vs $99.00 per month, model A comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $10.44 vs $191 per month, model A 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.

  • Amazon Nova Lite$0.018
  • o4-mini$0.330

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

Amazon Nova Liteo4-mini
  • GPQA,81.4
Pick Amazon Nova Lite if

Amazon Nova Lite fits when…

  • Very cheap
  • AWS-native
  • Multimodal
  • Cost-sensitive workloads, 18.3× cheaper than o4-mini on output tokens.
Pick o4-mini if

o4-mini fits when…

  • Strong reasoning at mid-tier price
  • Fast for a thinking model
  • Solid tool-use
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-mini vs DBRX

Frequently asked

  • Is Amazon Nova Lite or o4-mini cheaper?
    Amazon Nova Lite is cheaper at $0.24 / 1M tokens per million output tokens, vs $4.40 / 1M tokens for o4-mini.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    Amazon Nova Lite accepts 300K tokens vs 200K for o4-mini.
  • Is Amazon Nova Lite or o4-mini better for coding?
    Both Amazon Nova Lite and o4-mini 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-mini released?
    Amazon Nova Lite was released by Other on 2024-12-03. o4-mini was released by OpenAI on 2025-04-16.
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