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Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) are closely matched at 19.1 and 22.1 on the LLM Stats Score. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is 54.5x cheaper per token.

Anthropic · NVIDIA · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 19.1 and 22.1.

In the 3 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) wins 3; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

On price, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is roughly 54.5x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) also accepts a larger context window (262,144 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Claude 3.5 Sonnet

  • you want predictable pricing at $3.00/M input and $15.00/M output

Choose Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 3 of 3 exact shared results
  • cost matters — it's about 54.5x cheaper per token
  • you process long inputs — it offers a 262,144 token context window
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Aug 2026
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Anthropic
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
NVIDIA
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
19.1
#210
22.1
#181
Reasoning
20.1
#192
19.6
#200
Coding
11.4
#158
8.4
#184
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
0 of 3
3 of 3
Input price
$3.00 / M
$0.08 / M
Output price
$15.00 / M
$0.20 / M
Context window
200,000
262,144

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

2 shared
Index
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
Math
23.2#132
17.9#189
Tool use
8.2#141
-0.1#182
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

19 reported for Claude 3.5 Sonnet · 13 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

3 shared

Claude 3.5 Sonnet outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is better at 3 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU-Pro, SWE-Bench Verified).

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Tue Sep 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) costs less

For input processing, Claude 3.5 Sonnet ($3.00/1M tokens) is 37.5x more expensive than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) ($0.08/1M tokens).

For output processing, Claude 3.5 Sonnet ($15.00/1M tokens) is 75.0x more expensive than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) ($0.20/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Claude 3.5 Sonnet is more expensive than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B).*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers
Tue Sep 22 2026 • llm-stats.com
Anthropic
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Input tokens$3.00
Output tokens$15.00
Best providerAnthropic
NVIDIA
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
Input tokens$0.08
Output tokens$0.20
Best providerDeepinfra
Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue→

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) accepts 262,144 input tokens compared to Claude 3.5 Sonnet's 200,000 tokens. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) can generate longer responses up to 262,144 tokens, while Claude 3.5 Sonnet is limited to 200,000 tokens.

Anthropic
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Input200,000 tokens
Output200,000 tokens
NVIDIA
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
Input262,144 tokens
Output262,144 tokens
Tue Sep 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Claude 3.5 Sonnet supports multimodal inputs, whereas Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) does not.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude 3.5 Sonnet is licensed under a proprietary license, while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) uses OpenMDW License v1.1.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

Proprietary

Closed source

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

OpenMDW License v1.1

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude 3.5 Sonnet was released on 2024-10-22, while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) was released on 2026-08-11.

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is 22 months newer than Claude 3.5 Sonnet.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

Oct 22, 2024

1.9 years ago

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

Aug 11, 2026

1 months ago

1.8yr newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Provider Availability

Claude 3.5 Sonnet is available from Anthropic, Bedrock, Google. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is available from DeepInfra.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

anthropic logo
Anthropic
Input Price:Input: $3.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $15.00/1M
bedrock logo
AWS Bedrock
Input Price:Input: $3.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $15.00/1M
google logo
Google
Input Price:Input: $3.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $15.00/1M

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.08/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.20/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet
✓ Preferred
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B).

Which is better, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?

Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) are closely matched on the LLM Stats Score at 19.1 and 22.1. Claude 3.5 Sonnet is made by Anthropic and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is made by NVIDIA. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Claude 3.5 Sonnet compare to Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) in benchmarks?

Claude 3.5 Sonnet scores GSM8k: 96.4%, DocVQA: 95.2%, AI2D: 94.7%, HumanEval: 93.7%, BIG-Bench Hard: 93.1%. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) scores PinchBench: 85.4%, MMLU-Pro: 81.9%, GPQA: 75.4%, IFBench: 71.9%, AA-LCR: 52.0%.

Is Claude 3.5 Sonnet cheaper than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is 37.5x cheaper for input tokens. Claude 3.5 Sonnet costs $3.00/M input and $15.00/M output via anthropic. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) costs $0.08/M input and $0.20/M output via deepinfra.

What are the context window sizes for Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?

Claude 3.5 Sonnet supports 200K tokens and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) supports 262K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (19.1 vs 22.1), context window (200K vs 262K), input pricing ($3.00 vs $0.08/M), multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Proprietary vs OpenMDW License v1.1). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?

Claude 3.5 Sonnet is developed by Anthropic and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is developed by NVIDIA.

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