Compare / Qwen3.5 9B vs Nemotron Nano 9B v2
Qwen3.5 9B vs Nemotron Nano 9B v2
Updated November 2026
Verdict
Qwen3.5 9B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 63.9 vs 52.5. On the 2 benchmarks both labs report, Qwen3.5 9B wins 1 and Nemotron Nano 9B v2 wins 1. Both need about 6.4 GB of memory at 4-bit quantization. Only Qwen3.5 9B has a hosted API on OpenRouter ($0.028 per million tokens); the other has to be self-hosted.
Pick Qwen3.5 9B if…
- you want the strongest model overall
- you want a hosted API rather than running it yourself
- you work with long documents
- you need a permissive license (Apache-2.0)
- you need image input
- you want the more widely used model (more quantized builds and community support)
Pick Nemotron Nano 9B v2 if…
- you mostly write code
Specifications
| Qwen3.5 9B | Nemotron Nano 9B v2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Small LM Index | 63.9 (likely 58–69) | 52.5 (likely 48–57) |
| Lab | Alibaba (Qwen) · China | NVIDIA · United States |
| Released | 2026-03-02 | 2025-08-18 |
| Parameters | 9B (dense) | 8.9B (dense) |
| Memory at 4-bit | ~6.4 GB | ~6.2 GB |
| Context window | 262K tokens | 128K tokens |
| Input | text, image, video | text |
| Reasoning | Hybrid (thinking on/off) | Hybrid (thinking on/off) |
| License | Apache-2.0 | NVIDIA Open Model |
| API price / 1M tokens | $0.028 ($0.025 in, $0.036 out) | Self-host only |
| Hugging Face downloads (30 days) | 6.4M | 141.1K |
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 | Qwen3.5 9B | Nemotron Nano 9B v2 |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro Knowledge | 82.5 | ≈ 74 |
| GPQA Diamond Knowledge | 81.7 | 64.0 |
| AIME Math | ≈ 88 | 72.1 |
| LiveCodeBench Coding | 65.6 | 71.1 |
| τ²-Bench Agentic | 79.1 | — |
| IFBench Instruction following | 64.5 | — |
| MMMU-Pro Vision | 69.2✓ | — |
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, Qwen3.5 9B or Nemotron Nano 9B v2?
Qwen3.5 9B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 63.9 vs 52.5. On the 2 benchmarks both labs report, Qwen3.5 9B wins 1 and Nemotron Nano 9B v2 wins 1.
Which is cheaper to run?
Only Qwen3.5 9B has a hosted API on OpenRouter ($0.028 per million tokens); the other has to be self-hosted. Both need about 6.4 GB of memory at 4-bit quantization.
Which has the longer context window?
Qwen3.5 9B has the longer context window: 262K tokens against 128K.
Can I use Qwen3.5 9B and Nemotron Nano 9B v2 commercially?
Qwen3.5 9B is released under Apache-2.0 and Nemotron Nano 9B v2 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.