AI model comparison
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B
Pricing, context window, benchmarks, and features compared side by side. Or skip the guesswork and send one prompt to both.
NVIDIA
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is an open mixture-of-experts model from NVIDIA, with 3B active parameters out of 30B total.
- Input / 1M
- $0.05
- Output / 1M
- $0.13
- Context
- 262K
NVIDIA
Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B is a small language MoE model with highest compute efficiency and accuracy for developers to build specialized agentic AI systems.
- Input / 1M
- $0.06
- Output / 1M
- $0.24
- Context
- 262K
At a glance
Quick verdict
How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.
Lower price
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
1.5x cheaper for a typical chat
Higher intelligence score
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
12.9 vs 8.9 on Artificial Analysis
Larger context window
Tie
262K vs 262K tokens
Newer release
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Released August 11, 2026
Benchmarks
Benchmark scores
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.
Intelligence index
Coding index
Agentic index
Pricing
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B API pricing
Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.
| Metric | ||
|---|---|---|
| Input tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.05 | $0.06 |
| Output tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.13 | $0.24 |
| Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens | $0.02 | Not available |
| Cache writePer 1M tokens | Not available | Not available |
What it costs in practice
Estimated cost per 1,000 requests at standard rates. Coding and long-document figures also show the cost when the input is already cached.
Chat message
2K in, 500 out
Coding task
30K in, 4K out
Long document summary
150K in, 2K out
Specs
Context window and capabilities
How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.
| Metric | ||
|---|---|---|
| Context window | 262K tokens | 262K tokens |
| Max output | 131K tokens | 236K tokens |
| Input types | Text | Text |
| Output types | Text | Text |
| Reasoning effort levels | Not available | Not available |
| Default reasoning effort | Not available | Not available |
| Release date | August 11, 2026 | December 14, 2025 |
Features
Supported features
API features available for each model.
| Metric | ||
|---|---|---|
| Tool calling | Supported | Supported |
| Structured outputs | Supported | Supported |
| JSON mode | Supported | Supported |
| Reasoning | Supported | Supported |
| Temperature | Supported | Supported |
| Stop sequences | Supported | Supported |
| Deterministic seed | Supported | Supported |
| Verbosity control | Not supported | Not supported |
Keep exploring
More on these models
Other head-to-heads, the full model page, and the alternatives list for each model.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs gpt-oss-120b
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Gemma 4 31B
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs gpt-oss-20b
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs GPT-5 Nano
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Mercury 2.5
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen3.5-9B
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron 3 Super
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Granite 4.2 8B
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B vs Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B vs gpt-oss-120b
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B vs Nemotron 3 Super
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B vs Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B vs Granite 4.2 8B
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B vs Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B vs GPT-4.1 Nano
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B vs Qwen3 32B
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B vs Qwen3 14B
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B vs Llama 4 Scout
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B vs Nova Lite 1.0
Our take
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 1.5x cheaper for a typical chat. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (12.9 vs 8.9). The right pick depends on your workload, so the quickest way to settle it is to send the same prompt to both and compare.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B cheaper?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.05 per 1M input tokens and $0.13 per 1M output tokens, while Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B costs $0.06 per 1M input tokens and $0.24 per 1M output tokens.
Which has a bigger context window, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning supports up to 262K tokens of context, compared with 262K for Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B.
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning smarter than Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B?
On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores 12.9 and Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B scores 8.9, putting Nemotron 3.5 Lightning ahead. Benchmarks don't capture everything, so the best test is running your own prompts through both.
Can I use Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B at the same time?
Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B answer side by side and keep the better response.
Why choose? Ask both.
Send one prompt to Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.