# Mistral Small 3 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

> Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 1.5× 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/mistral-small-3-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3 scores higher in 0 categories and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads 37.5 to 16.3.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 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 33K.

## Snapshot

| | Mistral Small 3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | NVIDIA |
| Noometry Index | 31.2 | 40.0 |
| Rank | 278 | 155 |
| Context | 33K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | $0.08 | $0.20 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1246 | 1375 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 45.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 50.4% | — |

## Reasoning

- Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1233 | 1337 |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.07 | — |

## Math

- Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1240 | 1359 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 6.7% | — |

## Knowledge

- Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1202 | 1356 |
| GPQA Diamond | 47.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 25.2% | — |

## Multilingual

- Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1198 | 1295 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1204 | 1359 |
| LMArena French | 1203 | 1366 |
| LMArena German | 1211 | 1282 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1111 | 1206 |
| LMArena Korean | 1188 | 1238 |
| LMArena Russian | 1216 | 1253 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1345 |

## Instruction Following

- Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1214 | 1318 |

## Long Context

- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1246 | 1314 |

## Writing & Preference

- Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1234 | 1327 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1195 | 1254 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 707 | 1280 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1217 | 1328 |

## FAQ

### Is Mistral Small 3 better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 1.5× 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, Mistral Small 3 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning lists at $0.05 and $0.20.

### Is Mistral Small 3 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better for coding?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning does, with 262K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18.