Model comparison
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 33× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 14 shared benchmarks.
NVIDIA
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Max Preview in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads 57.6 to 37.5.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.30 / $7.80 for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | NVIDIA | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 40.0 | 51.5 |
| Released | 2026-08-11 | 2026-04-20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 262K | 262K |
| Max output | 262K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $1.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.20 | $7.80 |
| Results tracked | 18 | 29 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.7 (#54)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1375 | 1471 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 76.7% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1482 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —, Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 4,254 |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 41.7 (#53)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1337 | 1457 |
| SimpleBench | — | 63% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 74.1% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 20% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 19% |
| DTBench | — | 87.2% |
| LMCA | — | 42.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 149.24 |
Math Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.1 (#46)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1359 | 1465 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 91.1% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 23.1% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#39)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1356 | 1478 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 87.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 52% |
Multilingual Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.2 (#48)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1295 | 1437 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1359 | 1487 |
| LMArena French | 1366 | 1449 |
| LMArena Russian | 1253 | 1445 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1345 | 1454 |
| LMArena German | 1282 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1206 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1238 | — |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.7 (#55)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1318 | 1438 |
Long Context Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#61)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1314 | 1457 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 63.8 (#60)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1327 | 1447 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1254 | 1435 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1328 | 1456 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1280 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 33× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Max Preview lists at $1.30 and $7.80.
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.6 Max Preview better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.7 versus 40.4 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Both accept 262K tokens.
How many benchmarks do Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen3.6 Max Preview share?
14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29.