Model comparison
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen3.5 35B-A3B
Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.0 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 7.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 35B-A3B'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 2 categories and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B in 6 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads 47.8 to 37.5.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $2 for Qwen3.5 35B-A3B.
Side by side
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | NVIDIA | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 40.0 | 42.0 |
| Released | 2026-08-11 | 2026-02-01 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 262K | 262K |
| Max output | 262K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $0.25 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.20 | $2 |
| 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 35B-A3B: 33.8 (#251)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1375 | 1410 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1254 |
| SciCode | — | 29.3% |
Reasoning Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 24.6 (#161)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1337 | 1400 |
| CritPt | — | 0.6% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 10% |
| DTBench | — | 80% |
| LMCA | — | 29.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 142.52 |
Math Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 39.9 (#97)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1359 | 1404 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 56% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 70% |
Knowledge Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 47.8 (#79)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1356 | 1408 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 83.5% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 10.5% |
Multilingual Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 50.0 (#127)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1295 | 1378 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1359 | 1457 |
| LMArena French | 1366 | 1412 |
| LMArena German | 1282 | 1367 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1206 | 1325 |
| LMArena Korean | 1238 | 1356 |
| LMArena Russian | 1253 | 1376 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1345 | 1392 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 72.8 (#128)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1318 | 1379 |
Long Context Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 42.4 (#127)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1314 | 1389 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 57.9 (#124)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1327 | 1395 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1254 | 1346 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1328 | 1390 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1280 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Qwen3.5 35B-A3B?
Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.0 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 7.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 35B-A3B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.5 35B-A3B?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 35B-A3B lists at $0.25 and $2.
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.5 35B-A3B better for coding?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 33.8 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 35B-A3B share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B has 28.