Model comparison
Molmo 2 8b vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Molmo 2 8b and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning score almost the same on the Noometry Index (39.1 vs 40.0), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Last verified . 4 shared benchmarks.
Allen Institute for AI (Ai2)
NVIDIASummary
- They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Molmo 2 8b scores higher in 1 category and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning in 3 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
Side by side
| Molmo 2 8b | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) | NVIDIA |
| Noometry Index | 39.1 | 40.0 |
| Released | — | 2026-08-11 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | — | 262K |
| Max output | — | 262K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.05 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $0.20 |
| Results tracked | 5 | 18 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Molmo 2 8b: —, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141)
| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | — | 1375 |
Reasoning Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Molmo 2 8b: 25.6 (#146), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127)
| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1287 | 1337 |
Math Not comparable
Molmo 2 8b: —, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155)
| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | — | 1359 |
Knowledge Not comparable
Molmo 2 8b: —, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154)
| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | — | 1356 |
Multimodal Not comparable
Molmo 2 8b: 30.2 (#112), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —
| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1081 | — |
Multilingual Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Molmo 2 8b: 42.7 (#190), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180)
| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1276 | 1295 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1359 |
| LMArena French | — | 1366 |
| LMArena German | — | 1282 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1206 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1238 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1253 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1345 |
Instruction Following Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Molmo 2 8b: 67.0 (#201), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170)
| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1270 | 1318 |
Long Context Not comparable
Molmo 2 8b: —, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165)
| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1314 |
Writing & Preference Too close to call
Molmo 2 8b: 49.4 (#191), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201)
| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1288 | 1327 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1254 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1280 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1328 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Molmo 2 8b better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Molmo 2 8b and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning score almost the same on the Noometry Index (39.1 vs 40.0), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
How many benchmarks do Molmo 2 8b and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning share?
4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Molmo 2 8b has 5 scored results on Noometry and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18.