Kimi K2.7 Code vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Updated October 21, 2026. 13 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Pick Kimi K2.7 Code for coding: it scores 53.4 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.6 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning.
Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning when output tokens cost 27.2x less, or when a solved task costs $0.06 against $0.35.
- Shared results
- 13
- Kimi K2.7 Code only
- 38
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning only
- 7
- Like-for-like categories
- 5 of 9
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.
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
Kimi K2.7 Code
Kimi K2.7 Code scores 53.4 against 22.6.
4 and 2 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Kimi K2.7 Code
Kimi K2.7 Code leads, 25.8 against 12.9.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Kimi K2.7 Code
Kimi K2.7 Code leads, 21.0 against 3.5.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Kimi K2.7 Code has a Design Arena: websites result, 1264.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
No call
Both take 262K tokens.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Kimi K2.7 Code $0.0029, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.0001 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Kimi K2.7 Code $0.35, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.06.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Kimi K2.7 Code 53.4 from 4 benchmarks, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 22.6 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 25.6 points apart on average over 8 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI): Kimi K2.7 Code 67.0% against Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 10.9%, 56.2 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Kimi K2.7 Code $4.00 against Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.147 per million output tokens, 27.2x apart.
- Context window
- Both take 262K tokens.
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 | Kimi K2.7 Code | Bars | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 7 | 0 | 1 tie | |
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 0 | ||
| General | 1 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 12 | 0 | 1 tie |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index70
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.7 Code | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1474 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| AA Coding Index | 60.8 | 26.8 | Kimi K2.7 Code |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 82.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 78.2% | 52.8% | Kimi K2.7 Code |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 47.2% | 0.0% | Kimi K2.7 Code |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 25.4% | 3.0% | Kimi K2.7 Code |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 0.0% | 0.0% | Tie |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 67.0% | 10.9% | Kimi K2.7 Code |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | 50.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 29.5% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| SciCode | 47.8% | 32.1% | Kimi K2.7 Code |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 44.7% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| FrontierCode | 30.1% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| WeirdML | 54.1% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| ALE-Bench | 886.2 | 769.2 | Kimi K2.7 Code |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1475 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1451 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1513 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 20 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.7 Code | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 25.8 | 12.9 | Kimi K2.7 Code |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 150.1 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.7 Code | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 21.0 | 3.5 | Kimi K2.7 Code |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1176 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1175 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1143 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1143 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1147 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1131 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 1201 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1154 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 18.5% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 2.6% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 2.9% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 17.0% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 90.1% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| APEX-Agents | 37.6% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $5,083 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 23 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.7 Code | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 89.6% | 74.3% | Kimi K2.7 Code |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 35.0% | 10.6% | Kimi K2.7 Code |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 87.9% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| SimpleBench | 57.9% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Chess puzzles | 14.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index3 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.7 Code | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 95.6% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 54.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 12.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.7 Code | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 54.2% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 36.5% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.7 Code | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1264 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1259 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1220 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1227 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1241 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1253 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1176 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1196 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.7 Code | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 4.3% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| IFBench | 63.1% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 79.3% | 60.3% | Kimi K2.7 Code |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 48.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.7 Code measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 42 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.7 Code | 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 | MoonshotAI Kimi K2.7 Code | NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Moonshot AI | NVIDIA |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | June 12, 2026 | August 11, 2026 |
| Context window | 262K | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.95 | $0.0534 |
| Output $/Mtok | $4.00 | $0.147 |
| Coding index | 53.4 | 22.6 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 4 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.35 | $0.06 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Kimi K2.7 Code better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for coding?
Pick Kimi K2.7 Code for coding: it scores 53.4 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.6 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning. Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning when output tokens cost 27.2x less, or when a solved task costs $0.06 against $0.35.
Which is cheaper, Kimi K2.7 Code or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Kimi K2.7 Code costs $0.95 per million input tokens and $4.00 per million output tokens; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.0534 and $0.147. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Kimi K2.7 Code costs $0.35 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.06.
Which has the bigger context window, Kimi K2.7 Code or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Neither: both take 262K tokens.
How many benchmarks is the Kimi K2.7 Code vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning comparison based on?
13 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Kimi K2.7 Code'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.