# Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Step 3

> Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Step 3 score almost the same on the Noometry Index (40.0 vs 40.5), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/nemotron-3-5-lightning-vs-step-3
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 15

## Summary

- They share 15 benchmarks with published results for both. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher in 2 categories and Step 3 in 6 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Step 3 leads 54.3 to 48.5.

## Snapshot

| | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | NVIDIA | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 40.0 | 40.5 |
| Rank | 155 | 149 |
| Context | 262K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | — |
| Output $/M | $0.20 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141)
- Step 3: 40.1 (#147)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1375 | 1367 |

## Reasoning

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127)
- Step 3: 28.4 (#105)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1337 | 1355 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 62.3% |

## Math

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155)
- Step 3: 37.6 (#148)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1359 | 1366 |

## Knowledge

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154)
- Step 3: 36.8 (#164)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1356 | 1333 |

## Multimodal

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —
- Step 3: 35.5 (#86)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1177 |

## Multilingual

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180)
- Step 3: 46.3 (#159)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1295 | 1327 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1359 | 1397 |
| LMArena German | 1282 | 1371 |
| LMArena Korean | 1238 | 1269 |
| LMArena Russian | 1253 | 1331 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1345 | 1371 |
| LMArena French | 1366 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1206 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170)
- Step 3: 70.4 (#164)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1318 | 1332 |

## Long Context

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165)
- Step 3: 40.3 (#157)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1314 | 1326 |

## Writing & Preference

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201)
- Step 3: 54.3 (#151)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1327 | 1350 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1254 | 1321 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1328 | 1341 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1280 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Step 3?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Step 3 score almost the same on the Noometry Index (40.0 vs 40.5), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Step 3 better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (40.4 vs 40.1); test both on your own repository before choosing.

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

15 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18 scored results on Noometry and Step 3 has 17.