# Kimi K2.5 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

> Kimi K2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.1 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 10× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/kimi-k2-5-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 18

## Summary

- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Kimi K2.5 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 writing & preference, where Kimi K2.5 leads 65.1 to 48.5.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.45 / $2.25 for Kimi K2.5.

## Snapshot

| | Kimi K2.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Moonshot AI | NVIDIA |
| Noometry Index | 48.1 | 40.0 |
| Rank | 57 | 155 |
| Context | 262K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.45 | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | $2.25 | $0.20 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Kimi K2.5: 48.8 (#53)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1474 | 1375 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 73.8% | — |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 70.8% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1437 | — |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 67.3% | — |
| SciCode | 49% | — |
| WeirdML | 45.6% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 821.65 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Kimi K2.5: 34.2 (#48)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 43.2% | — |
| OSWorld | 63.3% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 1,198 | — |

## Reasoning

- Kimi K2.5: 31.2 (#80)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1453 | 1337 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 11.8% | — |
| SimpleBench | 46.8% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 78.5% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 69.9% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 65.3% | — |
| CritPt | 3.1% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 12% | — |
| EnigmaEval | 3.4% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 69.4% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 148.03 | — |

## Math

- Kimi K2.5: 51.8 (#53)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1470 | 1359 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 62.3% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 92.2% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 27.9% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 4.2% | — |

## Knowledge

- Kimi K2.5: 53.6 (#56)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1466 | 1356 |
| GPQA Diamond | 87.6% | — |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 24.4% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 34.3% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 14.2% | — |

## Multimodal

- Kimi K2.5: 41.1 (#39)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1269 | — |
| LMArena Document | 1430 | — |

## Multilingual

- Kimi K2.5: 53.9 (#53)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1433 | 1295 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1495 | 1359 |
| LMArena French | 1454 | 1366 |
| LMArena German | 1441 | 1282 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1421 | 1206 |
| LMArena Korean | 1410 | 1238 |
| LMArena Russian | 1435 | 1253 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1450 | 1345 |

## Instruction Following

- Kimi K2.5: 75.3 (#64)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1431 | 1318 |

## Long Context

- Kimi K2.5: 52.1 (#7)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1445 | 1314 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 86.1% | — |
| CL-bench | 19.3% | — |
| CL-bench Life | 13.2% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Kimi K2.5: 65.1 (#53)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1445 | 1327 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1423 | 1254 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1579 | 1280 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1444 | 1328 |

## FAQ

### Is Kimi K2.5 better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Kimi K2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.1 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 10× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Kimi K2.5 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens; Kimi K2.5 lists at $0.45 and $2.25.

### Is Kimi K2.5 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better for coding?

Kimi K2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.8 versus 40.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 262K tokens.

### How many benchmarks do Kimi K2.5 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Kimi K2.5 has 51 scored results on Noometry and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18.