Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)

Qwen3.8 Max (0902) leads Nemotron 3.5 Lightning on coding, 62.4 to 22.6 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 40.8x less per output token ($0.147 vs $6.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 19 benchmarks have a result for both.

Replace Nemotron 3.5 Lightning Replace Qwen3.8 Max (0902)

Nemotron 3.5 LightningNVIDIA

Coding: 22.6
Overall: No data
Output $/M: $0.147

Qwen3.8 Max (0902)Qwen

Coding: 62.4
Overall: 68.9
Output $/M: $6.00

vs boards won of 19 shared, 1 tied

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.8 Max (0902): which to pick

Pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) for coding: it scores 62.4 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.6 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning.

Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for output tokens 40.8x cheaper ($0.147 vs $6.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.06 against $1.32).

Model ANemotron 3.5 LightningNVIDIA22.6/1002 independent benchmarks$0.06 per solved task Model BQwen3.8 Max (0902)Qwen62.4/1005 independent benchmarks$1.32 per solved task

19195

Shared results: 19
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning only: 1
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) only: 95
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
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 62.4 against 22.6.
2 and 5 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) leads, 45.4 against 12.9.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) leads, 56.0 against 3.5.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) has a GPQA Diamond result, 93.7%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) has a MMLU Pro result, 88.6%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) has a Design Arena: websites result, 1275.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 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, Qwen3.8 Max (0902) $0.0050 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.06, Qwen3.8 Max (0902) $1.32.
Published attempt cost and pass rate

At a glance

Coding index: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 22.6 from 2 benchmarks, Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 62.4 from 5 benchmarks.
Widest category: General, 50.3 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
Widest single gap: MedScribe (Vals AI): Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 4.3% against Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 85.0%, 80.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
Output price: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.147 against Qwen3.8 Max (0902) $6.00 per million output tokens, 40.8x apart.
Context window: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning takes 262K tokens, Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 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.

Boards won, where both have a result
Category	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)	Ties
Coding	1	6	1 tie
Intelligence	0	1
Agentic work	0	5
Reasoning	0	2
Knowledge	0	1
General	0	2
All shared boards	1	17	1 tie

CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index16

Coding benchmarks for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)	Leader
LiveBench coding	Not measured	60.3%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena WebDev	Not measured	1674	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
AA Coding Index	26.8	76.2	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
LiveCodeBench (Vals AI)	Not measured	87.8%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI)	52.8%	85.6%	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI)	Not measured	34.3%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI)	0.0%	64.7%	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Code migration (Vals AI)	3.0%	24.0%	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
ProgramBench (Vals AI)	0.0%	0.0%	Tie
IOI (Vals AI)	Not measured	68.9%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI)	10.9%	67.4%	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI)	Not measured	42.5%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI)	Not measured	12.8%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
SkillsBench (Vals AI)	Not measured	42.0%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
CyberBench (Vals AI)	29.5%	28.6%	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
SciCode	32.1%	53.2%	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
FrontierSWE	Not measured	17.8%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
ALE-Bench	769.2	Not measured	Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured
LMArena Text: coding	Not measured	1502	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: software and IT	Not measured	1498	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena WebDev: React	Not measured	1692	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena WebDev: HTML	Not measured	1649	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena WebDev: from an image	Not measured	1637	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Neither model has a result on the other 20 boards here

IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01

Intelligence benchmarks for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)	Leader
AA Intelligence Index	12.9	45.4	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Epoch Capabilities Index	Not measured	157.4	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured

Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index05

Agentic work benchmarks for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)	Leader
AA Agentic Index	3.5	56.0	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Design Arena: agents building web apps	Not measured	1300	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps	Not measured	1305	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Design Arena: agents building mobile apps	Not measured	1224	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Design Arena: agents building Android apps	Not measured	1190	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Design Arena: agents building Godot games	Not measured	1234	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Design Arena: PowerPoint slides	Not measured	1232	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Design Arena: spreadsheets	Not measured	993	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LiveBench research	Not measured	69.9%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LiveBench browser	Not measured	32.0%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LiveBench long agentic	Not measured	42.3%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Finance Agent (Vals AI)	18.5%	50.6%	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI)	2.6%	32.1%	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Legal Research Bench (Vals AI)	2.9%	47.6%	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI)	17.0%	60.1%	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI)	Not measured	12.9%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
APEX-Agents	Not measured	63.3%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Search	Not measured	1261	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here

ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02

Reasoning benchmarks for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)	Leader
GPQA Diamond	Not measured	93.7%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LiveBench reasoning	Not measured	88.2%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
MysteryMechanism (Vals AI)	Not measured	23.9%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
MMMU Pro (Vals AI)	Not measured	88.0%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run)	74.3%	92.8%	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run)	10.6%	43.1%	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run)	Not measured	92.7%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Chess puzzles	Not measured	46.0%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Mystery game puzzles	Not measured	38.0%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: hard prompts	Not measured	1496	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: expert	Not measured	1507	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: hard prompts in English	Not measured	1503	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Vision: diagrams	Not measured	1323	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Vision: homework	Not measured	1336	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here

MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared

Math benchmarks for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)	Leader
OTIS Mock AIME	Not measured	100.0%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3	Not measured	74.7%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
FrontierMath, tier 4	Not measured	46.3%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
ProofBench	Not measured	58.0%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: math	Not measured	1501	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: mathematical work	Not measured	1491	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
MathArena	Not measured	51.6%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here

KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01

Knowledge benchmarks for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)	Leader
MMLU Pro	Not measured	88.6%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LegalBench (Vals AI)	Not measured	83.6%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
CorpFin (Vals AI)	54.2%	65.8%	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
TaxEval (Vals AI)	Not measured	75.5%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
MortgageTax (Vals AI)	Not measured	64.0%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
MedCode (Vals AI)	Not measured	40.7%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
SimpleQA Verified	Not measured	47.3%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: science	Not measured	1512	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare	Not measured	1503	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: legal and government	Not measured	1492	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: business and finance	Not measured	1480	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here

Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared

Web design benchmarks for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)	Leader
Design Arena: websites	Not measured	1275	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Design Arena: UI components	Not measured	1336	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Design Arena: game dev	Not measured	1312	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Design Arena: data viz	Not measured	1282	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Design Arena: 3D	Not measured	1336	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Design Arena: all code categories	Not measured	1292	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Design Arena: ASCII art	Not measured	1200	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LiveBench design	Not measured	78.6%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here

GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02

General benchmarks for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)	Leader
LiveBench data analysis	Not measured	78.4%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI)	Not measured	67.1%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
SAGE (Vals AI)	Not measured	51.2%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
MedScribe (Vals AI)	4.3%	85.0%	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Vals Multimodal Index	Not measured	65.4%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Long context reasoning (AA-LCR)	60.3%	80.3%	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
DTBench	Not measured	92.0%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMCA	Not measured	46.2%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
Furniture assembly	Not measured	20.0%	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text	Not measured	1483	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: instruction following	Not measured	1481	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: creative writing	Not measured	1477	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Vision	Not measured	1313	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: English	Not measured	1491	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: non-English	Not measured	1473	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: Chinese	Not measured	1539	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: German	Not measured	1478	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: Japanese	Not measured	1473	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: Korean	Not measured	1460	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: French	Not measured	1498	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: Spanish	Not measured	1489	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: Russian	Not measured	1482	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: Polish	Not measured	1471	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: multi-turn	Not measured	1489	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: longer queries	Not measured	1488	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: writing and language	Not measured	1477	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Text: entertainment and media	Not measured	1464	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Vision: English	Not measured	1311	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Vision: Chinese	Not measured	1358	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Vision: reading text	Not measured	1322	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Vision: humor	Not measured	1304	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) measured
LMArena Vision: creative writing	Not measured	1312	Only Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 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

Image generation benchmarks for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)	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$0.0001Fits in one request

Qwen3.8 Max (0902)$0.0050Fits in one request

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs less

Repository review

50K input + 3K output tokens

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning$0.0031Fits in one request

Qwen3.8 Max (0902)$0.118Fits in one request

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs less

Agent loop

200K input + 10K output tokens

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning$0.012Fits in one request

Qwen3.8 Max (0902)$0.460Fits in one request

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.

Specifications of Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Specification	NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Maker	NVIDIA	Qwen
Weights	Open weights	No public weights listed
Released	August 11, 2026	September 3, 2026
Context window	262K	1M
Input $/Mtok	$0.0534	$2.00
Output $/Mtok	$0.147	$6.00
Coding index	22.6	62.4
Independent measurements behind it	2	5
Cost per solved task	$0.06	$1.32
Source	OpenRouter listing	OpenRouter listing

Questions

Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Qwen3.8 Max (0902) for coding?

Pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) for coding: it scores 62.4 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.6 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning. Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for output tokens 40.8x cheaper ($0.147 vs $6.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.06 against $1.32).

Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.8 Max (0902)?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.0534 per million input tokens and $0.147 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 Max (0902) costs $2.00 and $6.00. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.06 and Qwen3.8 Max (0902) $1.32.

Which has the bigger context window, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.8 Max (0902)?

Qwen3.8 Max (0902), with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks is the Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902) comparison based on?

19 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 Qwen3.8 Max (0902)'s on 5. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.

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<iframe src="https://llmbenchmark.ai/embed/compare/nvidia-nemotron-3-5-lightning-vs-qwen3-8-max-0902" title="Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902), LLMBenchmark.ai" width="100%" height="360" style="border:0;max-width:100%" loading="lazy"></iframe>
<p style="font:13px/1.4 sans-serif;margin:6px 0 0">Source: <a href="https://llmbenchmark.ai/compare/nvidia-nemotron-3-5-lightning-vs-qwen3-8-max-0902">LLMBenchmark.ai, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)</a></p>

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.8 Max (0902): which to pick

Which one for your work

Coding

Intelligence

Agentic work

Reasoning

Knowledge

Web design

Long documents

Everyday cost

Cost per solved task

At a glance

Benchmark by benchmark

What each workload costs

Chat turn

Repository review

Agent loop

Specification differences

Questions

Compare next