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Head-to-head comparison

Nanbeige4.1 3B vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

Nanbeige4.1 3B (Nanbeige) and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (NVIDIA) compared on the ModelCap Index, API price, context window, provider availability, weight access and every public benchmark board they share. Figures are the same ones shown on the live rankings; nothing here is a hidden score.

Snapshot as of 9 September 2026

As of 9 September 2026, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#89 vs #90); and Nanbeige4.1 3B ships open weights.

Which should you choose?

Choose Nanbeige4.1 3B if…

  • you want to self-host: Nanbeige4.1 3B ships open weights while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is restricted license.
  • AA Humanity's Last Exam is your yardstick — 10.9% against 10.6%.

Choose Nemotron 3.5 Lightning if…

  • you want the stronger overall ModelCap Index position — #89 against #90 (44.0 vs 43.6 points).
  • you want provider choice — 2 listed API providers against 0.
  • AA Terminal-Bench 2.1 is your yardstick — 24.3% against 1.1%.
  • you want the more recently listed model — Nemotron 3.5 Lightning was listed 11 August 2026, Nanbeige4.1 3B 10 February 2026.

Nanbeige4.1 3B vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: specs, pricing and context

Specification comparison of Nanbeige4.1 3B and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
FieldNanbeige4.1 3BNanbeigeNemotron 3.5 LightningNVIDIA
ModelCap Index position#90#89
Index score43.644.0
EvidenceEstimatedMeasured
Input price / 1M tokensUnlisted$0.08
Output price / 1M tokensUnlisted$0.20
Context window— tokens262K tokens
Max output tokens—131K
API providers listed02
Weight accessOpen weightsRestricted license
Input modalitiesTextText
First listed10 February 202611 August 2026
PublisherNanbeigeNVIDIA

Evidence: global-corpus-prior over 182 held-out anchors (20%); launch card against 2 resolved peers on 6 rows (80%); exceeds every named peer on 5 of 6 rows; optimism haircut 3 from cross-lab-probe; shrunk 2.4 up toward the measured corpus · 1 public benchmark observation across 1 board. Prices are the lowest listed API offer per million tokens observed on the OpenRouter catalogue.

Benchmark scores: Nanbeige4.1 3B vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

Public benchmark boards where Nanbeige4.1 3B or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a published result
BoardNanbeige4.1 3BNemotron 3.5 LightningLeads
AA Intelligence IndexArtificial Analysis—13.6intelligence-index:v4.3:reasoning-unspecifiedOnly one result
AA Terminal-Bench 2.1Artificial Analysis1.1%terminal-bench:2.1:terminus-2:e2b:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Nanbeige4.1-3B":reasoning=true24.3%terminal-bench:2.1:terminus-2:e2b:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Nemotron 3.5 Lightning":reasoning=trueNemotron 3.5 Lightning
AA τ²-Bench TelecomArtificial Analysis21.6%tau2:telecom:dual-control:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Nanbeige4.1-3B":reasoning=true—Only one result
AA Humanity's Last ExamArtificial Analysis10.9%hle:may-2025:text-only-2158:no-tools:pass-at-1:source-model="Nanbeige4.1-3B":reasoning=true10.6%hle:may-2025:text-only-2158:no-tools:pass-at-1:source-model="Nemotron 3.5 Lightning":reasoning=trueNanbeige4.1 3B

Scores are the sources' own published figures for each model's best evaluated configuration; ModelCap never re-runs a benchmark.

Want a different pairing? Open the interactive comparison tool to swap either model for any current ranked language model.

Nanbeige4.1 3B vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: common questions

Is Nanbeige4.1 3B better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 9 September 2026: #89 against #90. That is a capability ranking built from public benchmark evidence with published uncertainty; whether it is "better" for you also depends on price, context and where you can run it. Their published uncertainty intervals overlap, so the rank difference alone does not establish a reliable capability advantage for your workload.

Is Nanbeige4.1 3B cheaper than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

At least one of the two has no listed API price on ModelCap right now, so no price comparison is made.

Which has the bigger context window, Nanbeige4.1 3B or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Both publish a —-token context window.

Which is better for coding, Nanbeige4.1 3B or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

AA Terminal-Bench 2.1: Nanbeige4.1 3B 1.1%, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 24.3% — Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads.

Are Nanbeige4.1 3B and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning open-weight models?

Nanbeige4.1 3B: Open weights. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Restricted license. Open weights mean the checkpoint can be downloaded and self-hosted under its licence; API-only models are available solely through hosted endpoints.

Where can I run Nanbeige4.1 3B and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

ModelCap currently lists 0 API providers for Nanbeige4.1 3B and 2 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, from the OpenRouter catalogue snapshot the site serves; each model page lists the providers and their prices.

How current is this Nanbeige4.1 3B vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning comparison?

Every figure comes from the sealed ModelCap dataset published 9 September 2026; the page re-renders within a minute of each data refresh, and the ModelCap Index positions are the same ones shown on the live rankings.

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