Kimi K3 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Kimi K3 leads Nemotron 3.5 Lightning on coding, 62.3 to 22.6 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 102.0x less per output token ($0.147 vs $15.00 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 20 benchmarks have a result for both.
Kimi K3 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: which to pick
Pick Kimi K3 for coding: it scores 62.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.6 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning.
Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for output tokens 102.0x cheaper ($0.147 vs $15.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.06 against $0.81).
- Shared results
- 20
- Kimi K3 only
- 97
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning only
- 0
- 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
Kimi K3
Kimi K3 scores 62.3 against 22.6.
6 and 2 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Kimi K3
Kimi K3 leads, 43.6 against 12.9.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Kimi K3
Kimi K3 leads, 50.0 against 3.5.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Kimi K3 has a GPQA Diamond result, 92.9%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Kimi K3 has a MMLU Pro result, 88.0%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Kimi K3 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1335.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Kimi K3 has a Vals Index result, 53.0%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Kimi K3
Kimi K3 takes 1.05M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Kimi K3 $0.011, 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 K3 $0.81, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.06.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Kimi K3 62.3 from 6 benchmarks, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 22.6 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- General, 56.1 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): Kimi K3 85.0% against Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 0.0%, 85.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Kimi K3 $15.00 against Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.147 per million output tokens, 102.0x apart.
- Context window
- Kimi K3 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 | Kimi K3 | Bars | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 9 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 5 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 1 | 0 | ||
| General | 2 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 20 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index90
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 59.3% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1655 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 76.2 | 26.8 | Kimi K3 |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 87.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 93.4% | 52.8% | Kimi K3 |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 17.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 85.0% | 0.0% | Kimi K3 |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 16.1% | 3.0% | Kimi K3 |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 2.0% | 0.0% | Kimi K3 |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 48.9% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 80.9% | 10.9% | Kimi K3 |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | 44.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | 18.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 75.2% | 29.5% | Kimi K3 |
| SciCode | 59.5% | 32.1% | Kimi K3 |
| FrontierCode | 44.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| FrontierSWE | 25.9% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| WeirdML | 82.6% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1524.5 | 769.2 | Kimi K3 |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1508 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1499 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1670 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1644 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1579 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 43.6 | 12.9 | Kimi K3 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 157.9 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index50
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 50.0 | 3.5 | Kimi K3 |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1295 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1315 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1269 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1250 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1223 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1252 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 1256 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1273 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1058 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LiveBench research | 79.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LiveBench browser | 16.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 42.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 53.1% | 18.5% | Kimi K3 |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 33.4% | 2.6% | Kimi K3 |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 46.1% | 2.9% | Kimi K3 |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 12.9% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 66.7% | 17.0% | Kimi K3 |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | 72.6% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 1.4% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Time Horizon Index (Vals AI) | 10.5% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| APEX-Agents | 47.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| PostTrainBench | 32.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $5,165 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 92.9% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | 90.7% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 88.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 93.5% | 74.3% | Kimi K3 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 46.9% | 10.6% | Kimi K3 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 93.1% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| ARC-AGI | 94.5% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 60.4% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| SimpleBench | 60.7% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 37.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 26.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1495 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1520 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1496 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 97.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 72.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 39.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| ProofBench | 87.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1494 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1505 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 88.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 86.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 71.6% | 54.2% | Kimi K3 |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 75.7% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 66.3% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 49.4% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 50.6% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1508 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1489 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1503 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1470 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1335 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1344 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1359 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1351 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1388 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1360 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1302 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LiveBench design | 77.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 53.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | 78.7% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 68.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 52.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 88.0% | 4.3% | Kimi K3 |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 73.4% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 88.7% | 60.3% | Kimi K3 |
| DTBench | 91.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMCA | 52.7% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 95.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Furniture assembly | 34.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1476 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1485 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1457 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1481 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1466 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1529 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1490 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1494 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1460 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1492 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1472 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1485 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1458 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1489 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1494 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1471 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1453 | Not measured | Only Kimi K3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | 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 K3 | NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Moonshot AI | NVIDIA |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | July 16, 2026 | August 11, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $3.00 | $0.0534 |
| Output $/Mtok | $15.00 | $0.147 |
| Coding index | 62.3 | 22.6 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 6 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.81 | $0.06 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Kimi K3 better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for coding?
Pick Kimi K3 for coding: it scores 62.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.6 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning. Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for output tokens 102.0x cheaper ($0.147 vs $15.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.06 against $0.81).
Which is cheaper, Kimi K3 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Kimi K3 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.0534 and $0.147. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Kimi K3 costs $0.81 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.06.
Which has the bigger context window, Kimi K3 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Kimi K3, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Kimi K3 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning comparison based on?
20 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Kimi K3's coding index rests on 6 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.