Amazon Nova Pro vs Laguna XS 2.1

Amazon · US  |  Poolside · US · Updated June 2026

Quick verdict

Pick Amazon Nova Pro for multimodal input across text, image and video at $0.80/$3.20 or deep aws and bedrock integration for enterprise pipelines. Pick Laguna XS 2.1 for remarkable efficiency — 70.9% on swe-bench verified from only 3b active parameters or open weights under openmdw-1.1, shipped day one in bf16, fp8, nvfp4 and int4 across every major runtime. Choose Laguna XS 2.1 if you need self-hosting or data privacy; Amazon Nova Pro if you want a managed API.

Amazon Nova Pro (Amazon) and Laguna XS 2.1 (Poolside) are two of the models people most often weigh against each other in 2026. Amazon Nova Pro is amazon's multimodal Bedrock model at $0.80/$3.20 with a 300K window — an enterprise-integrated generalist, not a frontier model. Laguna XS 2.1 is a 33B open-weight coding MoE running on 3B active parameters — 70.9% SWE-Bench Verified and very cheap, but unproven. They diverge most on price, context window and open vs. closed weights — each quantified below from the models' real specs.

Key differences at a glance

Side-by-side specs

SpecAmazon Nova ProLaguna XS 2.1
ProviderAmazon (US) Poolside (US)
ReleasedDecember 5, 2024 July 2, 2026
Context window300K (~450 pages) 256K (~393 pages)
Price (in/out)$0.8/$3.2 per 1M tokens $0.1/$0.2 per 1M tokens
Open weight?No — API only Yes — self-hostable
Modalitiestext, image, video, code text, code
SWE-Bench VerifiedNot published 70.9%
MRCR v2 @ 1MNot published Not published

Who wins what

Multimodal input across text, image and video at $0.80/$3.20

Amazon Nova Pro

Laguna XS 2.1 is comparatively weak here — the free endpoint trains on your inputs and outputs — disqualifying for proprietary code, which is its main use case

Deep AWS and Bedrock integration for enterprise pipelines

Amazon Nova Pro

Amazon Nova Pro lists deep AWS and Bedrock integration for enterprise pipelines among its strengths; Laguna XS 2.1 does not.

Balanced cost-to-capability for general business tasks

Amazon Nova Pro

Amazon Nova Pro lists balanced cost-to-capability for general business tasks among its strengths; Laguna XS 2.1 does not.

Remarkable efficiency — 70.9% on SWE-Bench Verified from only 3B active parameters

Laguna XS 2.1

Amazon Nova Pro is comparatively weak here — no published SWE-Bench Verified score

Open weights under OpenMDW-1.1, shipped day one in BF16, FP8, NVFP4 and INT4 across every major runtime

Laguna XS 2.1

Open weights make this possible at all — Amazon Nova Pro is API-only, so it cannot leave the vendor's servers.

Cheap even on the paid tier, at roughly a sixth of GLM 4.7's input price

Laguna XS 2.1

At $0.1/$0.2 per 1M tokens it undercuts Amazon Nova Pro ($0.8/$3.2 per 1M tokens), and that gap compounds at volume.

Lowest cost at scale

Laguna XS 2.1

At $0.1/$0.2 per 1M tokens, it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.

Which should you pick?

A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume

Laguna XS 2.1

At $0.1/$0.2 per 1M tokens it undercuts Amazon Nova Pro, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.

Someone analysing very long documents or codebases

Amazon Nova Pro

Larger 300K window fits more in one prompt.

A team with data-privacy or self-hosting needs

Laguna XS 2.1

Open weights let you run it on your own hardware; Amazon Nova Pro is API-only.

Anyone whose priority is multimodal input across text, image and video at $0.80/$3.20

Amazon Nova Pro

It is specifically built for that.

Anyone whose priority is remarkable efficiency — 70.9% on swe-bench verified from only 3b active parameters

Laguna XS 2.1

That is its strongest area.

Amazon Nova Pro: where it fits

Amazon's multimodal Bedrock model at $0.80/$3.20 with a 300K window — an enterprise-integrated generalist, not a frontier model. Released December 5, 2024 by Amazon, it is built for multimodal input across text, image and video at $0.80/$3.20, deep AWS and Bedrock integration for enterprise pipelines, balanced cost-to-capability for general business tasks, and a 300K context for long documents and mixed media.

Its trade-offs are real: not a frontier reasoning or coding model against 2026 flagships, no published SWE-Bench Verified score, best value is realised inside the AWS ecosystem, and late-2024 model — older than most of the field here. At $0.8 in / $3.2 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.

Laguna XS 2.1: where it fits

A 33B open-weight coding MoE running on 3B active parameters — 70.9% SWE-Bench Verified and very cheap, but unproven. Released July 2, 2026 by Poolside, it is built for remarkable efficiency — 70.9% on SWE-Bench Verified from only 3B active parameters, open weights under OpenMDW-1.1, shipped day one in BF16, FP8, NVFP4 and INT4 across every major runtime, cheap even on the paid tier, at roughly a sixth of GLM 4.7's input price, and unusually transparent evaluation — it publishes its harness, step limits, and sandbox specs.

Its trade-offs: weeks old with no independent replication; every published score traces back to Poolside's own harness, the free endpoint trains on your inputs and outputs — disqualifying for proprietary code, which is its main use case, and weak on harder agentic work (37.5 on Terminal-Bench 2.0), and its gain over XS.2 is barely above noise. At $0.1 in / $0.2 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.

The bottom line for this matchup

The defining split here is open vs. closed. Laguna XS 2.1 gives you weights you control — self-host it, fine-tune it, keep data in-house, pay only for hardware. Amazon Nova Pro gives you a managed, always-updated API with no infrastructure to run. Teams with GPUs, privacy requirements, or huge volume often favour the open model; teams that want zero ops and the latest capabilities favour the closed one. Capability is close enough that this operational question, not the benchmark, usually decides it.

Want both Amazon Nova Pro and Laguna XS 2.1 without two subscriptions? LumiChats gives you these plus 40+ models under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day) — draft with one, cross-check with the other.

See pricing

Frequently asked questions

Is Amazon Nova Pro or Laguna XS 2.1 better for coding?

Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for Amazon Nova Pro, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, Amazon Nova Pro leans toward multimodal input across text, image and video at $0.80/$3.20 while Laguna XS 2.1 leans toward remarkable efficiency — 70.9% on swe-bench verified from only 3b active parameters, and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.

Which is cheaper, Amazon Nova Pro or Laguna XS 2.1?

Laguna XS 2.1 is open-weight, so self-hosting means no per-token fee (you pay for hardware instead), while Amazon Nova Pro is API-metered at $0.8/$3.2 per 1M tokens. For most teams without GPUs, the API model is cheaper to start; at very high volume, self-hosting can win.

Which has the bigger context window?

Effectively neither — 300K vs 256K is a difference of a few percent. Remember advertised ≠ usable: recall typically degrades before the ceiling.

Can I use both Amazon Nova Pro and Laguna XS 2.1 together?

Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you Amazon Nova Pro, Laguna XS 2.1 and 40+ others under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day), so you can draft with one and cross-check with the other instead of buying two subscriptions.

Which is newer, Amazon Nova Pro or Laguna XS 2.1?

Laguna XS 2.1 — released July 2, 2026, about 19 months after Amazon Nova Pro.

Related comparisons

Specifications and benchmarks reflect publicly reported figures as of June 2026 and may change as providers release updates. Always verify on your own workload.