  Massive stars are one of the most important and investigated astrophysical
production sites of $^{26}$Al, a short-lived radioisotope with $\sim$ 1 Myr
half-life. Its short lifetime prevents us from observing its complete chemical
history, and only the $^{26}$Al that was recently produced by massive stars can
be observed. Hence, it is considered a tracer of star formation rate (SFR).
However, important contributions to $^{26}$Al comes from nova systems that
pollute the interstellar medium with a large delay, thus partly erasing the
correlation between $^{26}$Al and SFR. In this work we describe the 2D
distribution of the mass of $^{26}$Al as well as that of massive stars and nova
systems in the Milky Way, to investigate their relative contributions to the
production of $^{26}$Al. We use a detailed 2D chemical evolution model where
the SFR is azimuthally dependent and is required to reproduce the spiral arm
pattern observed in the Milky Way. We test two different models, one where the
$^{26}$Al comes from massive stars and novae, and one with massive stars only.
We then compare the predictions to the $\sim$ 2 M$_{\odot}$ of $^{26}$Al mass
observed by the surveys COMPTEL and INTEGRAL. The results show that novae do
not trace SFR and, in the solar vicinity, they concentrate in its minima. The
effect of novae on the map of the $^{26}$Al mass consists in damping the spiral
pattern by a factor of five. Regarding the nucleosynthesis, we find that
$\sim$75% of the $^{26}$Al is produced by novae and the $\sim$25% by massive
stars. We conclude that novae cannot be neglected as $^{26}$Al producers since
the observations can only be reproduced by including their contribution.
Moreover, we suggest that bulge novae should eject around six times more
material than the disc ones to well reproduce the observed mass of $^{26}$Al.
