Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 leads Nemotron 3.5 Lightning on coding, 39.5 to 22.6 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 12.2x less per output token ($0.147 vs $1.80 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 4 benchmarks have a result for both.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20: which to pick
Pick Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 for coding: it scores 39.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.6 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning.
Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for output tokens 12.2x cheaper ($0.147 vs $1.80 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.06 against $1.35).
- Shared results
- 4
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning only
- 16
- Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 only
- 21
- Like-for-like categories
- 2 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
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 scores 39.5 against 22.6.
2 benchmarks behind each score
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
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 has a GPQA Diamond result, 87.4%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 has a AIME result, 86.0%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 has a MMLU Pro result, 87.2%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 takes 1M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.0001, Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 $0.0012 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.06, Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 $1.35.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 22.6 from 2 benchmarks, Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 39.5 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 13.2 points apart on average over 3 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI): Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 52.8% against Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 71.2%, 18.4 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.147 against Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 $1.80 per million output tokens, 12.2x apart.
- Context window
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning takes 262K tokens, Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 1M.
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 | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 1 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 1 | ||
| All shared boards | 1 | 3 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index12
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Coding Index | 26.8 | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 85.3% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 52.8% | 71.2% | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 0.0% | 15.7% | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 |
| 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 |
| SciCode | 32.1% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| ALE-Bench | 769.2 | 608.9 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| Neither model has a result on the other 33 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 12.9 | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 146.2 | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 3.5 | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| 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 |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Not measured | $1 | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 36 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 87.4% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 22.8% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 74.3% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 10.6% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 84.8% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 8.0% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 17.0% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 86.0% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 86.7% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 87.2% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 85.1% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 59.7% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 54.2% | 65.3% | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 60.8% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | Not measured | 95.2% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 25.4% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
Web designNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 9 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 30.4% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 4.3% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 60.3% | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| DTBench | Not measured | 80.5% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 36.4% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| CL-bench | Not measured | 19.8% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| CL-bench Life | Not measured | 12.4% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 41 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | 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 | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | NVIDIA | Qwen |
| Weights | Open weights | No public weights listed |
| Released | August 11, 2026 | April 27, 2026 |
| Context window | 262K | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.0534 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.147 | $1.80 |
| Coding index | 22.6 | 39.5 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.06 | $1.35 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 for coding?
Pick Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 for coding: it scores 39.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.6 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning. Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for output tokens 12.2x cheaper ($0.147 vs $1.80 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.06 against $1.35).
Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.0534 per million input tokens and $0.147 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 costs $0.30 and $1.80. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.06 and Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 $1.35.
Which has the bigger context window, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20?
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 comparison based on?
4 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.