Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads Nemotron 3.5 Lightning on coding, 27.3 to 22.6 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 8.2x less per output token ($0.147 vs $1.20 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 19 benchmarks have a result for both.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Inkling Small: which to pick
Pick Inkling Small for coding: it scores 27.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.6 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning.
Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for output tokens 8.2x cheaper ($0.147 vs $1.20 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.06 against $0.16).
- Shared results
- 19
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning only
- 1
- Inkling Small only
- 65
- 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
Inkling Small
Inkling Small scores 27.3 against 22.6.
2 and 4 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads, 25.7 against 12.9.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads, 23.5 against 3.5.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Inkling Small has a GPQA Diamond result, 83.6%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Inkling Small has a MMLU Pro result, 85.6%.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Inkling Small has a Vals Index result, 27.6%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Inkling Small
Inkling Small takes 524K tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.0001, Inkling Small $0.0010 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.06, Inkling Small $0.16.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 22.6 from 2 benchmarks, Inkling Small 27.3 from 4 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- General, 47.6 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- MedScribe (Vals AI): Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 4.3% against Inkling Small 84.1%, 79.8 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.147 against Inkling Small $1.20 per million output tokens, 8.2x apart.
- Context window
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning takes 262K tokens, Inkling Small 524K.
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 | Inkling Small | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 8 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 5 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 1 | ||
| General | 0 | 2 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 19 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index08
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1409 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| AA Coding Index | 26.8 | 52.9 | Inkling Small |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 85.9% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 52.8% | 82.2% | Inkling Small |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 0.0% | 19.1% | Inkling Small |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 3.0% | 13.7% | Inkling Small |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 0.0% | 0.5% | Inkling Small |
| IOI (Vals AI) | Not measured | 9.3% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 10.9% | 55.1% | Inkling Small |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 33.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 29.5% | 64.1% | Inkling Small |
| SciCode | 32.1% | 49.7% | Inkling Small |
| ALE-Bench | 769.2 | Not measured | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1450 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1447 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1399 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1398 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | Not measured | 1410 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 20 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 12.9 | 25.7 | Inkling Small |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 150.3 | Only Inkling Small measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index05
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 3.5 | 23.5 | Inkling Small |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 18.5% | 41.3% | Inkling Small |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 2.6% | 15.4% | Inkling Small |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 2.9% | 25.5% | Inkling Small |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 2.9% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 17.0% | 31.8% | Inkling Small |
| Neither model has a result on the other 35 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 83.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 74.3% | 89.5% | Inkling Small |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 10.6% | 33.3% | Inkling Small |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 88.5% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| ARC-AGI | Not measured | 84.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | Not measured | 40.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 6.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1423 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1441 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1429 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | Not measured | 1251 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | Not measured | 1257 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 90.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 46.3% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | Not measured | 17.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 6.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1459 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1441 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 85.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 83.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 54.2% | 69.6% | Inkling Small |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 75.5% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 62.3% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 37.9% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 19.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1428 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1413 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1415 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1413 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
Web designNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 9 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 27.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 59.4% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 32.7% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 4.3% | 84.1% | Inkling Small |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 50.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 60.3% | 75.7% | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1413 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1399 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1334 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision | Not measured | 1237 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1421 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1401 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1464 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1408 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1401 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1367 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1435 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1422 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1394 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1428 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1416 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1402 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1357 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1352 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | Not measured | 1243 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | Not measured | 1292 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | Not measured | 1243 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | Not measured | 1207 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | Not measured | 1205 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Inkling Small | 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 | Thinking Machines Inkling Small |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | NVIDIA | Thinking Machines |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | August 11, 2026 | July 30, 2026 |
| Context window | 262K | 524K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.0534 | $0.45 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.147 | $1.20 |
| Coding index | 22.6 | 27.3 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 4 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.06 | $0.16 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Inkling Small for coding?
Pick Inkling Small for coding: it scores 27.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.6 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning. Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for output tokens 8.2x cheaper ($0.147 vs $1.20 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.06 against $0.16).
Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Inkling Small?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.0534 per million input tokens and $0.147 per million output tokens; Inkling Small costs $0.45 and $1.20. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.06 and Inkling Small $0.16.
Which has the bigger context window, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Inkling Small?
Inkling Small, with 524K tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Inkling Small 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 Inkling Small's on 4. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.