# Granite 4.0 Micro vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

> Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 2.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nemotron 3.5 Lightning's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-0-micro-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads 37.5 to 9.9.
- Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $0.05 / $0.20 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | NVIDIA |
| Noometry Index | 29.0 | 40.0 |
| Rank | 318 | 155 |
| Context | 131K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.017 | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | $0.11 | $0.20 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | — | 1375 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 19.2 (#265)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1337 |

## Math

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 12.0 (#307)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 2.8% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 20.9% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1359 |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#304)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 28.3% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 39.5% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1356 |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1295 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1359 |
| LMArena French | — | 1366 |
| LMArena German | — | 1282 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1206 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1238 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1253 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1345 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 69.9 (#169)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 84.9% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1318 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1314 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#216)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1327 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1254 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1280 |
| WildBench | 67% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1328 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 2.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Nemotron 3.5 Lightning's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning lists at $0.05 and $0.20.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning does, with 262K tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18.