The closest alternative to Nova Lite 1.0 is Hermes 3 70B Instruct — comparable intelligence (12.6 vs 12.7); for a cheaper option, Nemotron 3 Ultra (free) runs Free/M vs $0.060/M; for more speed, Mercury 2 hits 590 t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is MiniMax M3.
Hermes 3 70B Instruct is the closest alternative to Nova Lite 1.0, with an Intelligence Index of 12.6 (Nova Lite 1.0 scores 12.7) at $0.700 per million input tokens.
Yes — Nemotron 3 Ultra (free) costs Free per million input tokens versus $0.060 for Nova Lite 1.0, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to Nova Lite 1.0 — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.