Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 12.9 to 8.9, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 1.5x less per output token ($0.147 vs $0.22 per million). Updated October 23, 2026; 7 benchmarks have a result for both.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B: which to pick
Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a coding score, 22.6 on the Vibe Coding Index; Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B for work measured by GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) or Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 7
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning only
- 13
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B only
- 35
- Like-for-like categories
- 5 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 8.9.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads, 3.5 against 1.0.
Same board, both measured
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
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.0001, Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B $0.0002 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
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 22.6 from 2 benchmarks, Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- General, 22.3 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- Long context reasoning (AA-LCR): Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 60.3% against Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B 38.0%, 22.3 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.147 against Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B $0.22 per million output tokens, 1.5x 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 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Bars | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 2 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 2 | ||
| General | 1 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 5 | 2 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index20
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Coding Index | 26.8 | 14.4 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 52.8% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 0.0% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 3.0% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 0.0% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 10.9% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 29.5% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 74.1% | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| SciCode | 32.1% | 30.6% | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 13.6% | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| ALE-Bench | 769.2 | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1378 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1382 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 30 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 12.9 | 8.9 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 3.5 | 1.0 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 18.5% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 2.6% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 2.9% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 17.0% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 40.9% | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 36 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 74.3% | 75.7% | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 10.6% | 11.4% | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1348 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1356 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1376 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 91.0 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 91.0% | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1371 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1375 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 54.2% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 79.4% | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1353 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1349 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1341 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1345 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
Web designNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 9 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 4.3% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 71.1% | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 60.3% | 38.0% | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1348 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1304 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1270 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1378 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1320 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1383 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1348 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1269 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1269 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1396 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1376 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1304 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1302 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1319 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1300 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1284 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1294 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 28 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | 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 | NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | NVIDIA | NVIDIA |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | August 11, 2026 | December 14, 2025 |
| Context window | 262K | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.0534 | $0.055 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.147 | $0.22 |
| Coding index | 22.6 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.06 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B for coding?
Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a coding score, 22.6 on the Vibe Coding Index; Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B for work measured by GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) or Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.0534 per million input tokens and $0.147 per million output tokens; Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B costs $0.055 and $0.22. Cost per solved task is known for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning only.
Which has the bigger context window, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B?
Neither: both take 262K tokens.
How many benchmarks is the Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B comparison based on?
7 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 23, 2026. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.