Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen3.5 35B A3B
Wins 1 of 6 areas
Agents
Wins 3 of 6 areas
Coding · Reasoning · Long documents
Qwen3.5 35B A3B wins more areas, narrowly.Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper and better at agents.
Scores updated · 32 tests both models report · How we compare
Where each one wins
Tests won in each of the six areas where both have results. Each piece is one test, so a longer bar means more evidence; grey means the two scored within a point of each other.
- CodingWriting and fixing software04Qwen3.5 35B A3B4 of 4 tests
- ReasoningHard problems that need careful thinking02Qwen3.5 35B A3B2 of 3 tests · 1 tie
- Long documentsFinding answers in very long texts01Qwen3.5 35B A3B1 of 1 test
- AgentsCarrying out multi-step tasks on its own21Nemotron 3.5 Lightning2 of 3 tests
- FactsGetting facts right instead of making them up11Even1 each
- Following instructionsDoing exactly what it is asked00Even0 each · 1 tie
Long documents and following instructions rest on a single test each.
What it costs
Prices per million tokens, roughly 750,000 words. The bars show the cost of a million tokens read plus a million written.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 88% less for the same work.
The biggest differences
The three tests each model wins by the widest margin. Scores are out of 100.
Where Qwen3.5 35B A3B pulls ahead
- Finds hard-to-locate facts by browsing the webBrowseComp+24points ahead
- Fixes real GitHub issues in many programming languagesSWE-bench Multilingual+21points ahead
- Fixes real GitHub issues in Python projectsSWE-bench Verified+17.6points ahead
Where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning pulls ahead
- Avoids making up answers it doesn't knowAA-Omniscience · Non-hallucination+47.8points ahead
- Customer-service tasks in a simulated bankτ-Bench V3 · Banking+4points ahead
- Real work tasks from 44 professionsGDPVal+1.4points ahead
Every test, side by side
All 32 tests both models report. The winning score is in its model's colour; marks a score checked independently.
CodingQwen3.5 35B A3B
- SWE-bench MultilingualQwen3.5 35B A3B by 2139.360.3+21
- SWE-bench VerifiedQwen3.5 35B A3B by 17.651.669.2+17.6
- Terminal-Bench 2.1Qwen3.5 35B A3B by 16.524.340.8+16.5
- SciCodeQwen3.5 35B A3B by 5.632.137.7+5.6
AgentsNemotron 3.5 Lightning
- BrowseCompQwen3.5 35B A3B by 243761+24
- τ-Bench V3 · BankingNemotron 3.5 Lightning by 48.94.9+4
- GDPValNemotron 3.5 Lightning by 1.475.6+1.4
ReasoningQwen3.5 35B A3B
- Humanity's Last ExamQwen3.5 35B A3B by 10.410.621+10.4
- GPQA DiamondQwen3.5 35B A3B by 10.274.384.5+10.2
- CritPttie00.9tie
FactsEven
- AA-Omniscience · Non-hallucinationNemotron 3.5 Lightning by 47.862.414.6+47.8
- AA-Omniscience · AccuracyQwen3.5 35B A3B by 5.714.420.1+5.7
Other results18 tests, not counted
Tests outside the eight areas. They are not counted above: several are summary scores built from other tests, or the same test under another name.
- AA-OmniscienceNemotron 3.5 Lightning by 30.4-17.7-48.1+30.4
- Minerva MathNemotron 3.5 Lightning by 23.182.859.7+23.1
- RULER 1MNemotron 3.5 Lightning by 13.269.656.4+13.2
- HumanEvalNemotron 3.5 Lightning by 10.977.466.5+10.9
- Artificial Analysis Coding IndexQwen3.5 35B A3B by 10.226.837+10.2
- MBPPNemotron 3.5 Lightning by 7.878.670.8+7.8
- AA IntelligenceQwen3.5 35B A3B by 6.412.919.3+6.4
- AA Agentic IndexQwen3.5 35B A3B by 5.76.111.8+5.7
- RULER 256KQwen3.5 35B A3B by 5.576.982.4+5.5
- Global-MMLU-Lite (5-shot) AverageQwen3.5 35B A3B by 5.475.580.9+5.4
- MMLU-ProQwen3.5 35B A3B by 3.481.985.3+3.4
- OpenBookQANemotron 3.5 Lightning by 3.447.644.2+3.4
- ARC-ChallengeQwen3.5 35B A3B by 2.792.795.4+2.7
- PIQA (acc-norm)Nemotron 3.5 Lightning by 2.785.282.5+2.7
- MMLUQwen3.5 35B A3B by 2.578.681.1+2.5
- PIQA (Acc.)Nemotron 3.5 Lightning by 1.183.382.3+1.1
- WinoGrandetie8079.2tie
- HellaSwagtie85.585.6tie
Questions people ask
Which is better, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3.5 35B A3B?
Qwen3.5 35B A3B wins three of the six areas where both have results: coding, reasoning and long documents. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning wins agents, and costs 88% less. They are level on facts and following instructions.
Which is better for coding?
Qwen3.5 35B A3B. It wins 4 of the 4 coding tests both models report; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning wins none.
Which is cheaper?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 35B A3B costs $0.25 and $2.00. That makes Nemotron 3.5 Lightning about 88% cheaper for the same work.
How do you compare the two?
We use the 32 benchmark tests both models have published scores on. The verdict counts the 14 tests in the eight capability areas, and a gap under one point (ten on rating-style scales) counts as a tie. The other 18 are listed but not counted, because several are summary scores or repeat a test. Each score is the one shown on the model's own page.