Comparing countries like this does not make sense. The spread of the virus is more a reflection of how people live, what they do day to day, rather than what measures they took protect themselves.

Austria and Italy, share a border, have ski lodges in the same Alps. Austria got off easy even though they had a one of the first outbreaks, Italy got hammered for two months. Yet Italy locked down harder during all this time.

I don't know in what way is Norway different from Sweden, Norway looks and feels a lot more rural and sparse. Sweden more cosmopolitan.

Sure there's lots of factors. My point is that if you can stop or limit gatherings and contact points early the spread will decrease dramatically. It will still spread within smaller communities like families, but as long as you can limit spread outside of smaller communities the virus will have no where to go. So it seems more like a timing issue than how people live. Oslo is similar to Stockholm, just smaller, but have dramatically less cases (Oslo was hit hardest in Norway).

You could also compare Sweden to Denmark which is more similar than Norway. Denmark took drastic measures quite early and were able to get it under control.

Further to that I agree it's too early to say what is the best strategy long term. All epidemiologists in Scandinavia basically agreed with the Swedish approach in the beginning of the outbreak, but politicians in Norway and Denmark thought otherwise. I guess epidemiologists didn't think it was an option to basically lock down a modern country for several months and maintain social distancing rules for months on end. If this works until the end I assume the books on the subject will be rewritten ...