AI model comparison
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron 3 Super
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 Super
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super is a 120B-parameter open hybrid MoE model, activating just 12B parameters for maximum compute efficiency and accuracy in complex multi-agent applications.
- Input / 1M
- $0.08
- Output / 1M
- $0.45
- 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
2.4x cheaper for a typical chat
Higher intelligence score
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
12.9 vs 12.8 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 Super API pricing
Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.
| Metric | ||
|---|---|---|
| Input tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.05 | $0.08 |
| Output tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.13 | $0.45 |
| 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 | Medium, Low |
| Default reasoning effort | Not available | Medium |
| Release date | August 11, 2026 | March 11, 2026 |
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 Granite 4.2 8B
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B
- Nemotron 3 Super vs Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite
- Nemotron 3 Super vs gpt-oss-120b
- Nemotron 3 Super vs Gemma 4 31B
- Nemotron 3 Super vs GPT-5 Nano
- Nemotron 3 Super vs GLM 4.7 Flash
- Nemotron 3 Super vs Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507
- Nemotron 3 Super vs Mercury 2
- Nemotron 3 Super vs DeepSeek V3.1
- Nemotron 3 Super vs Mercury 2.5
- Nemotron 3 Super vs Mistral Small 4
- Nemotron 3 Super vs Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B
Our take
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 2.4x cheaper for a typical chat. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (12.9 vs 12.8). 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 Super 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 Super costs $0.08 per 1M input tokens and $0.45 per 1M output tokens.
Which has a bigger context window, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron 3 Super?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning supports up to 262K tokens of context, compared with 262K for Nemotron 3 Super.
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning smarter than Nemotron 3 Super?
On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores 12.9 and Nemotron 3 Super scores 12.8, 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 Super 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 Super answer side by side and keep the better response.
Why choose? Ask both.
Send one prompt to Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Nemotron 3 Super at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.