Mistral Small 3.1 24B vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 3.8x less per output token than Mistral Small 3.1 24B ($0.147 vs $0.555 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; no benchmark has tested both models yet.
- Coding
- No data
- Overall
- No data
- Output $/M
- $0.555
- Coding
- 22.6
- Overall
- No data
- Output $/M
- $0.147
Mistral Small 3.1 24B or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: which to pick
Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a coding score, 22.6 on the Vibe Coding Index; Mistral Small 3.1 24B has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
No benchmark has tested both yet. Mistral Small 3.1 24B has results on LMArena Text: coding, LMArena Text: software and IT and LMArena Text: hard prompts; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning on AA Coding Index, SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) and Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI). Compare them on price and context instead.
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
No call
Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a AA Intelligence Index result, 12.9.
Directional only
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a AA Agentic Index result, 3.5.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning takes 262K tokens against 128K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Mistral Small 3.1 24B $0.0006, 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
- Mistral Small 3.1 24B not benchmarked, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 22.6 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- None yet: no category has been tested on both models.
- Widest single gap
- None yet: no benchmark has tested both models.
- Output price
- Mistral Small 3.1 24B $0.555 against Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.147 per million output tokens, 3.8x apart.
- Context window
- Mistral Small 3.1 24B takes 128K tokens, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 262K.
Benchmark by benchmark
Every board either model has a result on, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale. Only one model is measured on each, so no row names a leader.
CodingDirectional onlySix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index11 boards measured
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 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 |
| SciCode | Not measured | 32.1% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 769.2 | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1309 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1301 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 28 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1 board measured
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | Not measured | 12.9 | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards measured
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 3.5 | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 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 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 36 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards measured
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1278 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1257 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1290 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1119 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1158 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards measured
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text: math | 1261 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1271 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards measured
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 54.2% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1265 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1267 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1271 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1257 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index27 boards measured
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 4.3% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 60.3% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| LMArena Text | 1277 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1263 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1252 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1136 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1295 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1255 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1253 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1266 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1208 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1207 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1273 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1284 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1263 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1242 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1270 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1299 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1268 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1250 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1157 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1155 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1132 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1142 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | 1153 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1155 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1123 | Not measured | Only Mistral Small 3.1 24B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 19 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 | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral AI | NVIDIA |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | March 17, 2025 | August 11, 2026 |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.351 | $0.0534 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.555 | $0.147 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 22.6 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $0.06 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Mistral Small 3.1 24B better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for coding?
Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a coding score, 22.6 on the Vibe Coding Index; Mistral Small 3.1 24B has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3.1 24B or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Mistral Small 3.1 24B costs $0.351 per million input tokens and $0.555 per million output tokens; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.0534 and $0.147. Cost per solved task is known for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning only.
Which has the bigger context window, Mistral Small 3.1 24B or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, with 262K tokens against 128K.
Has any benchmark tested both Mistral Small 3.1 24B and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
No benchmark has tested both yet. Mistral Small 3.1 24B has results on LMArena Text: coding, LMArena Text: software and IT and LMArena Text: hard prompts; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning on AA Coding Index, SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) and Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI). Compare them on price and context instead. Data as of October 22, 2026.