Model comparison
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen Plus
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 13 shared benchmarks.
NVIDIA
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen Plus in 4 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads 37.5 to 23.3.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $1.20 for Qwen Plus.
- Qwen Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | NVIDIA | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 40.0 | 37.1 |
| Released | 2026-08-11 | 2024-01-25 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 262K | 1M |
| Max output | 262K | 33K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $0.40 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.20 | $1.20 |
| Results tracked | 18 | 20 |
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Category by category
Coding Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141), Qwen Plus: 38.9 (#167)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1375 | 1328 |
Reasoning Qwen Plus leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127), Qwen Plus: 28.4 (#107)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1337 | 1317 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 63.3% |
| DTBench | — | 81.1% |
| LMCA | — | 24% |
Math Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155), Qwen Plus: 23.3 (#271)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1359 | 1326 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 17.8% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 65.3% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 1.7% |
Knowledge Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154), Qwen Plus: 27.4 (#251)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1356 | 1328 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 48.1% |
Multilingual Qwen Plus leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180), Qwen Plus: 45.1 (#175)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1295 | 1310 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1359 | 1347 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1206 | 1251 |
| LMArena Russian | 1253 | 1323 |
| LMArena French | 1366 | — |
| LMArena German | 1282 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1238 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1345 | — |
Instruction Following Too close to call
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170), Qwen Plus: 68.8 (#181)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1318 | 1303 |
Long Context Too close to call
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165), Qwen Plus: 40.3 (#158)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1314 | 1324 |
Writing & Preference Qwen Plus leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201), Qwen Plus: 52.2 (#176)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1327 | 1326 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1254 | 1293 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1328 | 1336 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1280 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Qwen Plus?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen Plus?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens; Qwen Plus lists at $0.40 and $1.20.
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen Plus better for coding?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 38.9 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen Plus does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen Plus share?
13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen Plus has 20.