Compare / Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B-A3B
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B-A3B
Updated November 2026
Verdict
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher on the Small LM Index: 63.3 vs 42.7, although their likely ranges overlap, so the lead is not certain. On the 3 benchmarks both labs report, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning wins 3 and Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B-A3B wins 0. Both need about 22.4 GB of memory at 4-bit quantization. Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a hosted API on OpenRouter ($0.049 per million tokens); the other has to be self-hosted.
Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning if…
- you want the strongest model overall
- you want a hosted API rather than running it yourself
- you work with long documents
Pick Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B-A3B if…
- you need image input
Specifications
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B-A3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Small LM Index | 63.3 (likely 54–70) | 42.7 (likely 30–56) |
| Lab | NVIDIA · United States | NVIDIA · United States |
| Released | 2026-08-11 | 2026-04-28 |
| Parameters | 31.6B (3.6B active, MoE) | 31.6B (3.5B active, MoE) |
| Memory at 4-bit | ~22.4 GB | ~22.4 GB |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 256K tokens |
| Input | text | text, image, audio, video |
| Reasoning | Always thinks | Always thinks |
| License | OpenMDW-1.1 | NVIDIA Open Model |
| API price / 1M tokens | $0.049 ($0.025 in, $0.12 out) | Self-host only |
| Hugging Face downloads (30 days) | — | — |
Benchmarks
Higher is better. Bold marks the winner where both labs report a score. ≈ marks the index model's estimate for a score that wasn't reported, ✓ an independent measurement and * a score measured by another lab.
| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro Knowledge | 81.9 | ≈ 65 |
| GPQA Diamond Knowledge | 74.3✓ | 46.9✓ |
| Humanity's Last Exam Reasoning | 10.6✓ | 4.8✓ |
| SWE-bench Verified Coding | 51.6 | ≈ 43 |
| τ²-Bench Agentic | — | 45.3✓ |
| IFBench Instruction following | — | 63.2✓ |
| AA-LCR Long context | 60.3✓ | 39.7✓ |
| SciCode Coding | 32.1✓ | — |
Scores are mostly reported by each lab with its own settings, so small gaps are noise. See the methodology. Open in the interactive comparison to add more models.
Questions
Which is better, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B-A3B?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher on the Small LM Index: 63.3 vs 42.7, although their likely ranges overlap, so the lead is not certain. On the 3 benchmarks both labs report, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning wins 3 and Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B-A3B wins 0.
Which is cheaper to run?
Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a hosted API on OpenRouter ($0.049 per million tokens); the other has to be self-hosted. Both need about 22.4 GB of memory at 4-bit quantization.
Which has the longer context window?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has the longer context window: 1M tokens against 256K.
Can I use Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B-A3B commercially?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is released under OpenMDW-1.1 and Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B-A3B under NVIDIA Open Model. Apache 2.0 and MIT allow commercial use; other licenses can add conditions, so read the license before shipping a product.