No they aren't unless you count being quad core a similarity. The Nexus 4 has a S4 Pro chip which is a Qualcomm designed chip with Krait cores similar in performance to the A15 core by ARM.

The A7 cores are basically low powered cores that were originally brought in to complement A15 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration As seen in the Galaxy S4.

That is before the GPU difference of Adreno 304 vs 320 is even taken into account.

Edit: Even a Snapdragon S4 Plus chip would have been a better performing chip than the 212 due to high performing cores.