Model comparison
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.3 to 39.3 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 13× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Plus'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 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Plus in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 Plus leads 56.1 to 36.9.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $3 for Qwen3.6 Plus.
- Qwen3.6 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 | Qwen3.6 Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | NVIDIA | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.3 | 47.3 |
| Released | 2026-08-11 | 2026-03-31 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 262K | 1M |
| Max output | 262K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.06 | $0.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.16 | $3 |
| Results tracked | 18 | 37 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.6 (#143), Qwen3.6 Plus: 40.6 (#125)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1370 | 1467 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 57.9% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1461 |
| SciCode | — | 40.7% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 670.15 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —, Qwen3.6 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 5,115 |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 25.7 (#128), Qwen3.6 Plus: 28.5 (#89)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1335 | 1449 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 60.3% |
| CritPt | — | 2.9% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 17% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 59.5% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 12% |
| DTBench | — | 81.9% |
| LMCA | — | 33.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 147.67 |
Math Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 34.7 (#156), Qwen3.6 Plus: 50.6 (#44)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1355 | 1450 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 38.2% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 93.3% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 26.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 8.3% |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 36.9 (#154), Qwen3.6 Plus: 56.1 (#40)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1354 | 1456 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 88.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 44.1% |
Multilingual Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#175), Qwen3.6 Plus: 53.5 (#66)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1292 | 1424 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1356 | 1478 |
| LMArena French | 1369 | 1454 |
| LMArena German | 1280 | 1451 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1213 | 1389 |
| LMArena Korean | 1233 | 1381 |
| LMArena Russian | 1257 | 1434 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1321 | 1432 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.8 (#166), Qwen3.6 Plus: 75.2 (#70)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1317 | 1425 |
Long Context Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#160), Qwen3.6 Plus: 45.1 (#48)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1312 | 1440 |
| CL-bench | — | 20.3% |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#198), Qwen3.6 Plus: 62.4 (#78)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1324 | 1437 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1254 | 1405 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1327 | 1438 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1280 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Qwen3.6 Plus?
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.3 to 39.3 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 13× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.6 Plus?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Plus lists at $0.50 and $3.
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.6 Plus better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Plus scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.6 versus 39.6 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.6 Plus does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen3.6 Plus share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Plus has 37.