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Amazon Nova Lite vs Pixtral 12B

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 · Pixtral 12B specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceAmazon Nova Lite

    Amazon Nova Lite publishes pricing ($0.24 / 1M output tokens) while Pixtral 12B does not.

  • 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.

  • ModalitiesTie

    Both handle text, vision.

  • OpennessPixtral 12B

    Pixtral 12B ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Amazon Nova Lite is API-only.

On balance Amazon Nova Lite edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Pixtral 12B's 1. Amazon Nova Lite publishes pricing ($0.24 / 1M output tokens) while Pixtral 12B does not. 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. Both target the same set of modalities (text, vision), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Pixtral 12B 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 Pixtral 12B, 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 Pixtral 12B sees more deployments in vision and edge deployment. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecAmazon Nova LitePixtral 12B
ProviderOtherMistral
ReleasedDec 2024Sep 2024
Modalitiestext, visiontext, vision
Context window300K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.060 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Output · 1M$0.24 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsNoYes (Apache-2.0)
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
  • Pixtral 12BPricing 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
  • Long-context tasks, handles 300K tokens vs 128K for Pixtral 12B.
Pick Pixtral 12B if

Pixtral 12B fits when…

  • Apache-2.0
  • Vision in 12B size
  • Single-GPU
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Apache-2.0).
Don't want either?

Consider DBRX

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

See DBRX specsAmazon Nova Lite vs DBRXPixtral 12B vs DBRX

Frequently asked

  • Is Amazon Nova Lite or Pixtral 12B 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 128K for Pixtral 12B.
  • Is Amazon Nova Lite or Pixtral 12B better for coding?
    Both Amazon Nova Lite and Pixtral 12B 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?
    Pixtral 12B ships open weights (Apache-2.0). Amazon Nova Lite is API-only.
  • When were Amazon Nova Lite and Pixtral 12B released?
    Amazon Nova Lite was released by Other on 2024-12-03. Pixtral 12B was released by Mistral on 2024-09-17.
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