Claude 3 Opus vs Nova Lite
Claude 3 Opus and Nova Lite are closely matched at 10.1 and 7.8 on the LLM Stats Score. Nova Lite is 285.7x cheaper per token.
Anthropic · Amazon · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Claude 3 Opus and Nova Lite are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 10.1 and 7.8.
In the 7 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Claude 3 Opus wins 5; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
On price, Nova Lite is roughly 285.7x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Nova Lite also accepts a larger context window (300,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Claude 3 Opus
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 5 of 7 exact shared results
Choose Nova Lite
- cost matters — it's about 285.7x cheaper per token
- you process long inputs — it offers a 300,000 token context window
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Nov 2024
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
11 reported for Claude 3 Opus · 27 for Nova Lite
Claude 3 Opus outperforms in 5 benchmarks (ARC-C, DROP, GPQA, GSM8k, MMLU), while Nova Lite is better at 2 benchmarks (HumanEval, MATH).
Claude 3 Opus shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Claude 3 Opus ($15.00/1M tokens) is 250.0x more expensive than Nova Lite ($0.06/1M tokens).
For output processing, Claude 3 Opus ($75.00/1M tokens) is 312.5x more expensive than Nova Lite ($0.24/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Claude 3 Opus is more expensive than Nova Lite.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Nova Lite accepts 300,000 input tokens compared to Claude 3 Opus's 200,000 tokens. Claude 3 Opus can generate longer responses up to 200,000 tokens, while Nova Lite is limited to 2,048 tokens.
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Both Claude 3 Opus and Nova Lite support multimodal inputs.
They are both capable of processing various types of data, offering versatility in application.
Claude 3 Opus
Nova Lite
License
Usage and distribution terms
Both models are licensed under proprietary licenses.
Both models have usage restrictions defined by their respective organizations.
Proprietary
Closed source
Proprietary
Closed source
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Claude 3 Opus was released on 2024-02-29, while Nova Lite was released on 2024-11-20.
Nova Lite is 9 months newer than Claude 3 Opus.
Feb 29, 2024
2.5 years ago
Nov 20, 2024
1.8 years ago
8mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Provider Availability
Claude 3 Opus is available from Anthropic, Bedrock, Google. Nova Lite is available from Bedrock.
Claude 3 Opus
Nova Lite
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Claude 3 Opus and Nova Lite side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Claude 3 Opus vs Nova Lite.