Model comparison
Granite 4.0 Micro vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.3 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 2.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nemotron 3.5 Lightning's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.
NVIDIASummary
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads 36.9 to 9.9.
- Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $0.06 / $0.16 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.
Side by side
| Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | NVIDIA |
| Noometry Index | 28.8 | 39.3 |
| Released | 2025-10-02 | 2026-08-11 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | 262K |
| Max output | 118K | 262K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.017 | $0.06 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.11 | $0.16 |
| Results tracked | 8 | 18 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.6 (#143)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | — | 1370 |
Reasoning Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 18.5 (#261), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 25.7 (#128)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1335 |
Math Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 11.2 (#301), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 34.7 (#156)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 2.8% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 20.9% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1355 |
Knowledge Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#299), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 36.9 (#154)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 28.3% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 39.5% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1354 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#175)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1292 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1356 |
| LMArena French | — | 1369 |
| LMArena German | — | 1280 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1213 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1233 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1257 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1321 |
Instruction Following Too close to call
Granite 4.0 Micro: 70.0 (#164), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.8 (#166)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 84.9% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1317 |
Long Context Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#160)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1312 |
Writing & Preference Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#212), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#198)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1324 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1254 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1280 |
| WildBench | 67% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1327 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.3 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 2.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nemotron 3.5 Lightning's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning lists at $0.06 and $0.16.
Which has the bigger context window?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning does, with 262K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning share?
0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18.