# Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen Plus

> Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.3 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/nemotron-3-5-lightning-vs-qwen-plus
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 13

## Summary

- They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen Plus in 4 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads 34.7 to 22.0.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $1.20 for Qwen Plus.
- Qwen Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | NVIDIA | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.3 | 36.7 |
| Rank | 156 | 204 |
| Context | 262K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.06 | $0.40 |
| Output $/M | $0.16 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.6 (#143)
- Qwen Plus: 38.3 (#163)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1370 | 1328 |

## Reasoning

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 25.7 (#128)
- Qwen Plus: 27.6 (#101)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1335 | 1317 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 63.3% |
| DTBench | — | 81.1% |
| LMCA | — | 24% |

## Math

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 34.7 (#156)
- Qwen Plus: 22.0 (#266)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1355 | 1326 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 17.8% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 65.3% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 1.7% |

## Knowledge

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 36.9 (#154)
- Qwen Plus: 27.4 (#245)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1354 | 1328 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 48.1% |

## Multilingual

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#175)
- Qwen Plus: 45.3 (#170)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1292 | 1310 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1356 | 1347 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1213 | 1251 |
| LMArena Russian | 1257 | 1323 |
| LMArena French | 1369 | — |
| LMArena German | 1280 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1233 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1321 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.8 (#166)
- Qwen Plus: 69.0 (#176)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1317 | 1303 |

## Long Context

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#160)
- Qwen Plus: 40.3 (#153)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1312 | 1325 |

## Writing & Preference

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#198)
- Qwen Plus: 52.4 (#171)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1324 | 1326 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1254 | 1293 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1327 | 1336 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1280 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Qwen Plus?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.3 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen Plus?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; Qwen Plus lists at $0.40 and $1.20.

### Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen Plus better for coding?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.6 versus 38.3 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen Plus does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

### How many benchmarks do Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen Plus share?

13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen Plus has 20.