Model comparison
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen3.5-Flash
Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.5 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 2.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5-Flash'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-Flash in 6 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.5-Flash leads 57.9 to 48.5.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.10 / $0.40 for Qwen3.5-Flash.
- Qwen3.5-Flash 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 | Qwen3.5-Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | NVIDIA | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 40.0 | 42.5 |
| Released | 2026-08-11 | 2026-02-23 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 262K | 1M |
| Max output | 262K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.20 | $0.40 |
| Results tracked | 18 | 32 |
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Category by category
Coding Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141), Qwen3.5-Flash: 34.2 (#242)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1375 | 1412 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1244 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 221.8 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —, Qwen3.5-Flash: —
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 462.69 |
Reasoning Qwen3.5-Flash leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127), Qwen3.5-Flash: 33.7 (#72)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1337 | 1403 |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 21% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 20% |
| DTBench | — | 82.9% |
| LMCA | — | 29.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 143.98 |
Math Too close to call
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155), Qwen3.5-Flash: 37.4 (#158)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1359 | 1407 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.2% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 84.4% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 6.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 0% |
Knowledge Qwen3.5-Flash leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154), Qwen3.5-Flash: 43.2 (#93)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1356 | 1407 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 82.3% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 20.3% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 10.5% |
Multilingual Qwen3.5-Flash leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180), Qwen3.5-Flash: 50.5 (#121)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1295 | 1385 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1359 | 1446 |
| LMArena French | 1366 | 1412 |
| LMArena German | 1282 | 1390 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1206 | 1368 |
| LMArena Korean | 1238 | 1344 |
| LMArena Russian | 1253 | 1379 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1345 | 1400 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.5-Flash leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170), Qwen3.5-Flash: 72.6 (#139)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1318 | 1374 |
Long Context Qwen3.5-Flash leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165), Qwen3.5-Flash: 42.4 (#124)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1314 | 1392 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.5-Flash leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201), Qwen3.5-Flash: 57.9 (#122)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1327 | 1397 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1254 | 1343 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1328 | 1393 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1280 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Qwen3.5-Flash?
Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.5 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 2.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5-Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.5-Flash?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5-Flash lists at $0.10 and $0.40.
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.5-Flash better for coding?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 34.2 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.5-Flash does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen3.5-Flash share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-Flash has 32.