Model comparison
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen3 Max
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 39.3 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 28× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max'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 Max in 7 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3 Max leads 62.6 to 48.5.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $1.20 / $6 for Qwen3 Max.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | NVIDIA | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.3 | 43.5 |
| Released | 2026-08-11 | 2025-09-23 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 262K | 262K |
| Max output | 262K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.06 | $1.20 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.16 | $6 |
| Results tracked | 18 | 33 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3 Max leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.6 (#143), Qwen3 Max: 42.4 (#93)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1370 | 1456 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 370.45 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —, Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 71.56 |
Reasoning Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 25.7 (#128), Qwen3 Max: 22.0 (#186)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1335 | 1448 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 72.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 30.1% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 4% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 5% |
| DTBench | — | 82.1% |
| LMCA | — | 28.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 142.41 |
Math Qwen3 Max leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 34.7 (#156), Qwen3 Max: 37.6 (#94)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1355 | 1447 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.9% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 73.3% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 97.1% |
Knowledge Qwen3 Max leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 36.9 (#154), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#72)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1354 | 1457 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 72.6% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 48.7% |
Multilingual Qwen3 Max leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#175), Qwen3 Max: 53.9 (#58)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1292 | 1429 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1356 | 1479 |
| LMArena French | 1369 | 1450 |
| LMArena German | 1280 | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1213 | 1399 |
| LMArena Korean | 1233 | 1397 |
| LMArena Russian | 1257 | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1321 | 1463 |
Instruction Following Qwen3 Max leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.8 (#166), Qwen3 Max: 75.0 (#81)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1317 | 1420 |
Long Context Qwen3 Max leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#160), Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#129)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1312 | 1439 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| CL-bench | — | 14.5% |
Writing & Preference Qwen3 Max leads
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#198), Qwen3 Max: 62.6 (#72)
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1324 | 1439 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1254 | 1401 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1327 | 1446 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1280 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Qwen3 Max?
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 39.3 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 28× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3 Max?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Max lists at $1.20 and $6.
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3 Max better for coding?
Qwen3 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.4 versus 39.6 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 Max share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.