Gemini 4 Carbon vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Gemini 4 Carbon leads Nemotron 3.5 Lightning on coding, 86.6 to 22.6 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 55.6x less per output token ($0.18 vs $10.00 per million). Updated November 14, 2026; 12 benchmarks have a result for both.
Gemini 4 Carbon or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: which to pick
Pick Gemini 4 Carbon for coding: it scores 86.6 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.6 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning.
Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for output tokens 55.6x cheaper ($0.18 vs $10.00 per million).
- Shared results
- 12
- Gemini 4 Carbon only
- 61
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning only
- 14
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
Gemini 4 Carbon
Gemini 4 Carbon scores 86.6 against 22.6.
4 and 2 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Gemini 4 Carbon
Gemini 4 Carbon leads, 60.0 against 5.5.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a AA Agentic Index result, 3.5.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Gemini 4 Carbon has a Design Arena: websites result, 1319.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Gemini 4 Carbon has a Vals Index result, 70.5%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemini 4 Carbon
Gemini 4 Carbon takes 1.05M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Gemini 4 Carbon $0.0070, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.0001 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has the number, $0.06.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Gemini 4 Carbon 86.6 from 4 benchmarks, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 22.6 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Reasoning, 66.0 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): Gemini 4 Carbon 89.1% against Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 0.0%, 89.1 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Gemini 4 Carbon $10.00 against Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.18 per million output tokens, 55.6x apart.
- Context window
- Gemini 4 Carbon takes 1.05M tokens, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 262K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Gemini 4 Carbon | Bars | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 4 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 2 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 1 | 0 | ||
| General | 2 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 12 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index40
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Carbon | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 91.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1768 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 26.8 | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 52.8% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 63.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 89.1% | 0.0% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 3.0% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 10.9% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 29.5% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 32.1% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Artificial Analysis run) | 65.2% | 0.5% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| FrontierCode 2.0 | 40.6% | 0.0% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| FrontierSWE | 61.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| ALE-Bench | 2374.7 | 769.2 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1564 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1552 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1792 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1770 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| CursorBench 4.0 | 60.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 32 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Carbon | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 60.0 | 5.5 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 169.8 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Carbon | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 3.5 | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1284 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1224 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LiveBench research | 92.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LiveBench browser | 80.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 72.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 18.5% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 51.8% | 2.6% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 55.8% | 2.9% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 17.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 17.0% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| APEX-Agents | 84.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $16,484 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 31 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Carbon | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench reasoning | 90.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 74.3% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 10.6% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| HLE-Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 69.1% | 4.5% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| CritPt v2, hard subset (Artificial Analysis run) | 69.0% | 1.5% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 96.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| ARC-AGI | 98.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 94.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| SimpleBench | 92.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Chess puzzles | 78.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 73.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| EBR-bench | 87.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1551 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1582 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1545 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Carbon | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 90.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 95.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1538 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| MathArena | 85.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Carbon | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 54.2% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| AA-Omniscience | 53.5 | -15.7 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| SimpleQA Verified | 77.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1535 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1525 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1542 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1520 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | 78.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| PRBench Legal | 53.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Carbon | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1319 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1357 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1326 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1434 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1348 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LiveBench design | 80.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Carbon | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 70.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | 86.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 4.3% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 79.3% | 60.3% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| GDPval-AA | 1733 | 645 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Furniture assembly | 77.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text | 1538 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1539 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1533 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1530 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1534 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1613 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1560 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1569 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1549 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1542 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1527 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 32 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Carbon | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Google Gemini 4 Carbon | NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | NVIDIA | |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | November 10, 2026 | August 11, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.055 |
| Output $/Mtok | $10.00 | $0.18 |
| Coding index | 86.6 | 22.6 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 4 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $0.06 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Gemini 4 Carbon better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for coding?
Pick Gemini 4 Carbon for coding: it scores 86.6 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.6 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning. Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for output tokens 55.6x cheaper ($0.18 vs $10.00 per million).
Which is cheaper, Gemini 4 Carbon or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Gemini 4 Carbon costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.055 and $0.18. Cost per solved task is known for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning only.
Which has the bigger context window, Gemini 4 Carbon or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Gemini 4 Carbon, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Gemini 4 Carbon vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning comparison based on?
12 benchmarks have a result for both models as of November 14, 2026. Gemini 4 Carbon's coding index rests on 4 independent benchmarks and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.