Model comparison
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen3.5 27B
Qwen3.5 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 9.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.
NVIDIA
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3.5 27B in 7 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.5 27B leads 59.3 to 48.5.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.40 for Qwen3.5 27B.
Side by side
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 27B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | NVIDIA | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 40.0 | 41.9 |
| Released | 2026-08-11 | 2026-02-23 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 262K | 262K |
| Max output | 262K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.20 | $2.40 |
| Results tracked | 18 | 28 |
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Category by category
Coding Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.9 (#168)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1375 | 1427 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1358 |
| WeirdML | — | 39.5% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 349.45 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —, Qwen3.5 27B: —
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 201.98 |
Reasoning Too close to call
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127), Qwen3.5 27B: 27.5 (#117)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1337 | 1414 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 47.9% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 45.5% |
| DTBench | — | 82.4% |
| LMCA | — | 34% |
Math Qwen3.5 27B leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.8 (#127)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1359 | 1429 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 56.7% |
Knowledge Too close to call
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.0 (#150)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1356 | 1428 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 12.1% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —, Qwen3.5 27B: 39.4 (#59)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1241 |
Multilingual Qwen3.5 27B leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180), Qwen3.5 27B: 50.8 (#115)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1295 | 1390 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1359 | 1478 |
| LMArena French | 1366 | 1410 |
| LMArena German | 1282 | 1393 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1206 | 1345 |
| LMArena Korean | 1238 | 1358 |
| LMArena Russian | 1253 | 1390 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1345 | 1407 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.5 27B leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170), Qwen3.5 27B: 73.5 (#119)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1318 | 1393 |
Long Context Qwen3.5 27B leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165), Qwen3.5 27B: 43.1 (#106)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1314 | 1413 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.5 27B leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201), Qwen3.5 27B: 59.3 (#111)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1327 | 1409 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1254 | 1362 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1328 | 1410 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1280 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Qwen3.5 27B?
Qwen3.5 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 9.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.5 27B?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 27B lists at $0.30 and $2.40.
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.5 27B 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?
Both accept 262K tokens.
How many benchmarks do Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen3.5 27B share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 27B has 28.