AI model comparison
Solar Mini 4 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Side by side comparison of Solar Mini 4 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning on pricing, benchmark scores, context window, and more.
Solar Mini 4 is Upstage's compact, cost-efficient language model, a 35B-parameter mixture-of-experts with 3B active parameters and a 524K context window.
- Input / 1M
- $0.05
- Output / 1M
- $0.20
- Context
- 524K
NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is an open mixture-of-experts model from NVIDIA, with 3B active parameters out of 30B total.
- Input / 1M
- $0.07
- Output / 1M
- $0.20
- Context
- 262K
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At a glance
Quick verdict
How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.
Lower price
Solar Mini 4
1.2x cheaper for a typical chat
Higher intelligence score
Not available
Not enough benchmark data
Larger context window
Solar Mini 4
524K vs 262K tokens
Newer release
Solar Mini 4
Released September 23, 2026
Benchmarks
Benchmark scores
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.
Intelligence index
Coding index
Agentic index
Pricing
Solar Mini 4 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning API pricing
Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.
| Metric | ||
|---|---|---|
| Input tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.05 | $0.07 |
| Output tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.20 | $0.20 |
| Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens | $0.01 | $0.04 |
| 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 | 524K tokens | 262K tokens |
| Max output | 131K tokens | 236K tokens |
| Input types | Text | Text |
| Output types | Text | Text |
| Reasoning effort levels | Max, Extra high, High, Medium, Low, Minimal, None | Not available |
| Default reasoning effort | Medium | Not available |
| Release date | September 23, 2026 | August 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 | Not supported | Supported |
| Deterministic seed | Not supported | Supported |
| Verbosity control | Not supported | Not supported |
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Our take
Solar Mini 4 is 1.2x cheaper for a typical chat. Solar Mini 4 has the larger context window (524K vs 262K tokens). 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 Solar Mini 4 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning cheaper?
Solar Mini 4 is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Solar Mini 4 costs $0.05 per 1M input tokens and $0.20 per 1M output tokens, while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.07 per 1M input tokens and $0.20 per 1M output tokens.
Which has a bigger context window, Solar Mini 4 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Solar Mini 4 supports up to 524K tokens of context, compared with 262K for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning.
Can I use Solar Mini 4 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning at the same time?
Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Solar Mini 4 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning answer side by side and keep the better response.
Why choose? Ask both.
Send one prompt to Solar Mini 4 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.