# Inkling-Small vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

> Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 39.3 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 7.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling-Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/inkling-small-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 18

## Summary

- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Inkling-Small scores higher in 8 categories and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Inkling-Small leads 39.0 to 25.7.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $0.45 / $1.20 for Inkling-Small.
- Inkling-Small accepts more context: 524K tokens versus 262K.

## Snapshot

| | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | NVIDIA |
| Noometry Index | 46.5 | 39.3 |
| Rank | 57 | 156 |
| Context | 524K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.45 | $0.06 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $0.16 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Inkling-Small: 43.3 (#80)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.6 (#143)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1451 | 1370 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1408 | — |
| SciCode | 48.7% | — |

## Reasoning

- Inkling-Small: 39.0 (#53)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 25.7 (#128)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1424 | 1335 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 40.1% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 84% | — |
| CritPt | 8.3% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 18% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 6% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 150.13 | — |

## Math

- Inkling-Small: 44.9 (#65)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 34.7 (#156)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1453 | 1355 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 46.3% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 17.1% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 90% | — |
| ProofBench | 6% | — |

## Knowledge

- Inkling-Small: 48.3 (#71)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 36.9 (#154)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1442 | 1354 |
| GPQA Diamond | 88.5% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 19.1% | — |

## Multimodal

- Inkling-Small: 38.4 (#59)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1235 | — |

## Multilingual

- Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#102)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#175)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1400 | 1292 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1458 | 1356 |
| LMArena French | 1438 | 1369 |
| LMArena German | 1412 | 1280 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1399 | 1213 |
| LMArena Korean | 1355 | 1233 |
| LMArena Russian | 1392 | 1257 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1426 | 1321 |

## Instruction Following

- Inkling-Small: 73.9 (#112)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.8 (#166)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1397 | 1317 |

## Long Context

- Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#113)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#160)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1401 | 1312 |

## Writing & Preference

- Inkling-Small: 59.8 (#102)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#198)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1413 | 1324 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1330 | 1254 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1491 | 1280 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1420 | 1327 |

## FAQ

### Is Inkling-Small better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 39.3 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 7.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling-Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Inkling-Small or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; Inkling-Small lists at $0.45 and $1.20.

### Is Inkling-Small or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better for coding?

Inkling-Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.3 versus 39.6 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Inkling-Small does, with 524K tokens against 262K.

### How many benchmarks do Inkling-Small and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Inkling-Small has 33 scored results on Noometry and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18.