Llama 4 Scout vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads Llama 4 Scout on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 12.9 to 6.5, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 3.4x less per output token ($0.147 vs $0.50 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 9 benchmarks have a result for both.
Llama 4 Scout or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: which to pick
Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a coding score, 22.6 on the Vibe Coding Index; Llama 4 Scout has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Llama 4 Scout for a larger context window (1.31M against 262K tokens) and work measured by MedScribe (Vals AI), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 9
- Llama 4 Scout only
- 73
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning only
- 11
- 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
No call
Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads, 12.9 against 6.5.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads, 3.5 against 0.5.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Llama 4 Scout has a GPQA Diamond result, 47.0%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Llama 4 Scout has a AIME result, 19.0%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Llama 4 Scout has a MMLU Pro result, 69.6%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Llama 4 Scout has a Design Arena: websites result, 750.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Llama 4 Scout
Llama 4 Scout takes 1.31M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Llama 4 Scout $0.0004, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.0001 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Llama 4 Scout $1.276, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.06.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Llama 4 Scout not benchmarked, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 22.6 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- General, 39.5 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- MedScribe (Vals AI): Llama 4 Scout 50.6% against Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 4.3%, 46.3 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Llama 4 Scout $0.50 against Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.147 per million output tokens, 3.4x apart.
- Context window
- Llama 4 Scout takes 1.31M 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 | Llama 4 Scout | Bars | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 2 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 1 | ||
| General | 1 | 1 | ||
| All shared boards | 1 | 8 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index02
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Scout | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 9.1% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| AA Coding Index | 8.2 | 26.8 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 38.5% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 52.8% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| 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 |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 29.9% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| SciCode | 21.3% | 32.1% | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 1.5% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 769.2 | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1286 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1286 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Scout | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 6.5 | 12.9 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 129.6 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Scout | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 0.5 | 3.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| 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 | 15.5% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) | 28.1% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 34 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Scout | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 47.0% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 58.8% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 58.7% | 74.3% | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 3.8% | 10.6% | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 51.8% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| ARC-AGI | 0.5% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0.0% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1266 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1235 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1293 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1125 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1148 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 36.9% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Scout | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 19.0% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | 79.2% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 88.0% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| AA Math Index | 14.0 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 14.0% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 7.8% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| MATH level 5 | 62.3% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1287 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1286 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Scout | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 69.6% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 72.0% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 46.8% | 54.2% | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 55.2% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 57.8% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 50.9% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 23.3% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 75.2% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1278 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1275 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1285 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1257 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Scout | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 750 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 765 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 772 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 896 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 789 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Scout | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 34.8% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 50.6% | 4.3% | Llama 4 Scout |
| IFBench | 39.5% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 27.7% | 60.3% | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| DTBench | 57.9% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMCA | 12.0% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 36.0% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text | 1279 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1248 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1249 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1118 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1304 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1252 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1255 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1273 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1206 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1207 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1283 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1278 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1263 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1265 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1280 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1265 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1269 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1242 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1143 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1106 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1117 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1102 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1126 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Scout measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Scout | 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 | Meta Llama 4 Scout | NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Meta Llama | NVIDIA |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | April 5, 2025 | August 11, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.31M | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.175 | $0.0534 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.50 | $0.147 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 22.6 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.276 | $0.06 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Llama 4 Scout better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for coding?
Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a coding score, 22.6 on the Vibe Coding Index; Llama 4 Scout has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Llama 4 Scout for a larger context window (1.31M against 262K tokens) and work measured by MedScribe (Vals AI), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Llama 4 Scout or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Llama 4 Scout costs $0.175 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.0534 and $0.147. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Llama 4 Scout costs $1.276 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.06.
Which has the bigger context window, Llama 4 Scout or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Llama 4 Scout, with 1.31M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Llama 4 Scout vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning comparison based on?
9 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Llama 4 Scout's coding index rests on 0 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.