The closest alternative to Nova Micro 1.0 is Nova 2 Lite — comparable intelligence (— vs —); for a cheaper option, GPT-5 Nano (batch) runs $0.025/M vs $0.035/M; and the best open-weight substitute is Kimi K3.
Nova 2 Lite is the closest alternative to Nova Micro 1.0, with an Intelligence Index of — (Nova Micro 1.0 scores —) at $0.300 per million input tokens.
Yes — GPT-5 Nano (batch) costs $0.025 per million input tokens versus $0.035 for Nova Micro 1.0, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
Kimi K3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to Nova Micro 1.0 — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 57.1 on intelligence.