Model comparison

Amazon Nova 2 Lite vs Claude Sonnet 5.5

Amazon against Anthropic, compared on context, price, and attributed benchmark results.

Recorded profile verification October 2, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: Medium — see receipts below

Amazon

Amazon Nova 2 Lite

Balanced

Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Balanced

AI model capability comparison
Specification	Amazon Nova 2 Lite	Claude Sonnet 5.5
Provider
Provider	Amazon	Anthropic
Tier
Tier	Balanced	Balanced
Context window
Context window	1M	1M
Max output
Max output	Not verifiedUnverified	128K
Input / 1M tokens
Input / 1M tokens	Winner: $0.30	$2
Output / 1M tokens
Output / 1M tokens	Winner: $2.50	$10
Weights
Weights	Closed	Closed
Parameters
Parameters	Not verifiedUnverified	Not verifiedUnverified
Reasoning levels
Reasoning levels	low, medium, high	low, medium, high, xhigh, max
Modalities
Modalities	text, image, video	text, image
API model id
API model id	amazon.nova-2-lite-v1:0	claude-sonnet-5-5
Released
Released	December 2, 2025	September 28, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [max] · source date Claude Sonnet 5.5: 2026-10-01
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [max] · source date Claude Sonnet 5.5: 2026-10-01	Not verifiedUnverified	56
Terminal-Bench 4.0 [max] · source date Claude Sonnet 5.5: 2026-10-01
Terminal-Bench 4.0 [max] · source date Claude Sonnet 5.5: 2026-10-01	Not verifiedUnverified	63.6
Terminal-Bench 4.0 · source date Claude Sonnet 5.5: 2026-10-01
Terminal-Bench 4.0 · source date Claude Sonnet 5.5: 2026-10-01	Not verifiedUnverified	70.6
CursorBench 4.0 [max] · source date Claude Sonnet 5.5: 2026-10-01
CursorBench 4.0 [max] · source date Claude Sonnet 5.5: 2026-10-01	Not verifiedUnverified	55.5
Humanity's Last Exam · source date Claude Sonnet 5.5: 2026-10-01
Humanity's Last Exam · source date Claude Sonnet 5.5: 2026-10-01	Not verifiedUnverified	64.5
FrontierCode 1.1 (Main) [xhigh] · source date Claude Sonnet 5.5: 2026-10-01
FrontierCode 1.1 (Main) [xhigh] · source date Claude Sonnet 5.5: 2026-10-01	Not verifiedUnverified	52.1
OSWorld 2.1 · source date Claude Sonnet 5.5: 2026-10-01
OSWorld 2.1 · source date Claude Sonnet 5.5: 2026-10-01	Not verifiedUnverified	80.1

Dates beside benchmark scores refer to the linked source’s publication or capture date unless that source explicitly states when it measured the result. A shared URL alone does not establish comparable runs; unverified setups are marked. Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

Source date2026-10-01
Anthropic (vendor-reported) (partial task set)
Source date2026-10-01
Anthropic (vendor-reported)
Source date2026-10-01
Anthropic (vendor-reported) (with tools)
Frontier-knowledge ceiling: extremely hard multi-domain questions written to be near-impossible without deep expertise.
Comparable with caveatSubset/tool configurations (text-only vs with-tools) differ between vendors and materially change scores; must match configuration to compare.
Source date2026-10-01
Cursor (vendor-run coding agent)
Source date2026-10-01
Artificial Analysis (independent, mini-swe-agent)
Agentic terminal work: long multi-step tasks executed in a sandboxed shell environment.
Comparable with caveatDo not directly compare scores across Terminal-Bench versions: 4.0 revises and prunes the 3.0 task set and changes environment resources, requiring fresh trials. Within 4.0, harness, time limit, tools, sampling and resource settings must match; maintainer-agent and Artificial Analysis runs are not interchangeable.
Source date2026-10-01
Anthropic (vendor-reported)
Agentic terminal work: long multi-step tasks executed in a sandboxed shell environment.
Comparable with caveatDo not directly compare scores across Terminal-Bench versions: 4.0 revises and prunes the 3.0 task set and changes environment resources, requiring fresh trials. Within 4.0, harness, time limit, tools, sampling and resource settings must match; maintainer-agent and Artificial Analysis runs are not interchangeable.
Source date2026-10-01
Artificial Analysis (Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max with fallback))
Composite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score.
Comparable with caveatOnly same-version scores are comparable. v4.3.2 was rebaselined (the top score fell from 66 on v4.1.1 to ~58), so v4.1.1 figures must not be compared with v4.3.2 figures — check the cited source and its date.

Pricing tiers

Amazon Nova 2 Lite: Bedrock Global Standard $0.30/$2.50 per MTok, cached input $0.075 and cache writes $0. Single-region $0.33/$2.75, cached $0.0825. Global Flex/Batch $0.15/$1.25; Global Priority $0.525/$4.375, cached $0.13125. Grounding costs $0.03 per request separately. Snapshot: September 30, 2026 native offer file; regional routes, service tiers and customization have separate meters.

Claude Sonnet 5.5: Standard $2/$10 per MTok with no long-context surcharge; cache reads $0.20, 5-minute writes $2.50 and 1-hour writes $4. Batch $1/$5. US-only inference adds 10% where supported. The 300K output limit requires the Batch API beta header output-300k-2026-03-24; standard output stays 128K. Knowledge cutoff Jun 2026; retirement not sooner than September 28, 2027.

BalancedRecord checked October 2, 2026

Amazon Nova 2 Lite

Amazon’s hosted Nova 2 Lite reasoning model for everyday business workflows, with a 1M-token context window.

Best for

Document processing
Business automation
Bedrock integrations

Watch out

Extended thinking is optional and off by default. Low/medium/high controls apply when enabled; high forbids maxTokens, temperature and topP overrides. The model card advertises 64K output, but the high-thinking guide describes outputs exceeding 65K and sometimes reaching 128K, so no universal hard output cap is asserted. Reasoning tokens are billed as output. Use the route-specific US/EU/JP/global ID supported by your account; documents are inputs and text is generated.

BalancedRecord checked October 1, 2026

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Anthropic’s newer Sonnet model for everyday coding and knowledge work at the same $2/$10 token rates as Sonnet 5.

Best for

Everyday coding
Document and slide creation
Fast iteration

Watch out

Vendor scores use Anthropic's evaluation setup. between_tools turns off up-front thinking only at high effort or below. Forced tool use and non-default temperature/top_p/top_k error; older computer_20251124 and some advisors are rejected. Thinking blocks are model/conversation-bound; progress text needs a display setting that returns it. Haiku 5.5 is announced, not released as of October 1.

When the cheaper one wins

Amazon Nova 2 Lite is cheaper on output at $2.50 per million tokens against $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5 — about 4.0×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. This compares standard short-context token rates, not total cost per accepted task. Include input, cache, context tiers, schedules, retries and review in your pilot.

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Evidence confidence: Medium

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
3/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output, parameter count.
No directly aligned benchmark setup — No benchmark has matching cited sources, source dates, units, effort and recorded run details on both models.
Verified within the last 90 days — Older of the two catalog checks was 25 days ago.
Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Amazon Nova 2 Lite: AWS dated Nova 2 Lite availability (accessed 2026-10-02)
Amazon Nova 2 Lite: AWS exact Lite card: Active, base ID, routes and rounded limits (accessed 2026-10-02)
Amazon Nova 2 Lite: AWS Lite thinking defaults and high-effort exceptions (accessed 2026-10-02)
Amazon Nova 2 Lite: AWS native Lite billing meters, September 30 offer (accessed 2026-10-02)
Amazon Nova 2 Lite: Amazon Lite text/image/video input and text output (accessed 2026-10-02)
Claude Sonnet 5.5: Claude model overview — whole-profile source check October 1 (accessed 2026-10-01)
Claude Sonnet 5.5: Claude current API pricing, caching and inference geography (accessed 2026-10-01)
Claude Sonnet 5.5: Anthropic release announcement (accessed 2026-10-01)
Claude Sonnet 5.5: Claude Platform Sonnet 5.5 specifications (accessed 2026-10-01)
Claude Sonnet 5.5: Claude models overview (accessed 2026-10-01)
Claude Sonnet 5.5: Anthropic selectable effort levels (separate from adaptive thinking mode) (accessed 2026-10-01)

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? Amazon Nova 2 Lite · Claude Sonnet 5.5

Common questions

Amazon Nova 2 Lite vs Claude Sonnet 5.5

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is Amazon Nova 2 Lite or Claude Sonnet 5.5 cheaper for input?

Amazon Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 per million input tokens, against $2 for Claude Sonnet 5.5 — roughly 6.7× the price. Estimate both input and output token volume for your workload. These are base rates; Amazon Nova 2 Lite: Bedrock Global Standard $0.30/$2.50 per MTok, cached input $0.075 and cache writes $0. Single-region $0.33/$2.75, cached $0.0825. Global Flex/Batch $0.15/$1.25; Global Priority $0.525/$4.375, cached $0.13125. Grounding costs $0.03 per request separately. Snapshot: September 30, 2026 native offer file; regional routes, service tiers and customization have separate meters. Claude Sonnet 5.5: Standard $2/$10 per MTok with no long-context surcharge; cache reads $0.20, 5-minute writes $2.50 and 1-hour writes $4. Batch $1/$5. US-only inference adds 10% where supported. The 300K output limit requires the Batch API beta header output-300k-2026-03-24; standard output stays 128K. Knowledge cutoff Jun 2026; retirement not sooner than September 28, 2027.

Is Amazon Nova 2 Lite or Claude Sonnet 5.5 cheaper for output?

Amazon Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $2.50 per million output tokens, against $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5 — roughly 4.0× the price. Estimate both input and output token volume for your workload. These are base rates; Amazon Nova 2 Lite: Bedrock Global Standard $0.30/$2.50 per MTok, cached input $0.075 and cache writes $0. Single-region $0.33/$2.75, cached $0.0825. Global Flex/Batch $0.15/$1.25; Global Priority $0.525/$4.375, cached $0.13125. Grounding costs $0.03 per request separately. Snapshot: September 30, 2026 native offer file; regional routes, service tiers and customization have separate meters. Claude Sonnet 5.5: Standard $2/$10 per MTok with no long-context surcharge; cache reads $0.20, 5-minute writes $2.50 and 1-hour writes $4. Batch $1/$5. US-only inference adds 10% where supported. The 300K output limit requires the Batch API beta header output-300k-2026-03-24; standard output stays 128K. Knowledge cutoff Jun 2026; retirement not sooner than September 28, 2027.

Which has the larger context window, Amazon Nova 2 Lite or Claude Sonnet 5.5?

Both accept about 1M tokens of context, so document length will not decide between them.

Do Amazon Nova 2 Lite and Claude Sonnet 5.5 support the same reasoning levels?

Amazon Nova 2 Lite exposes low, medium, high, while Claude Sonnet 5.5 exposes low, medium, high, xhigh, max.

Should I use Amazon Nova 2 Lite or Claude Sonnet 5.5?

Both are classified in our balanced tier; this editorial grouping does not imply equal capability. Amazon Nova 2 Lite is a candidate for document processing; Claude Sonnet 5.5 is a candidate for everyday coding. Compare accuracy, tool reliability, latency and cost on representative tasks.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

Input price: Amazon Nova 2 Lite costs $0.30 per 1M tokens versus $2 for Claude Sonnet 5.5 — a 6.7x difference at the headline tier.

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