Model Comparison
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B vs Nemotron Nano 9B v2Which is better in 2026?
Nemotron Nano 9B v2 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Verdict: DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B vs Nemotron Nano 9B v2 — which is better?
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B (by DeepSeek) and Nemotron Nano 9B v2 (by NVIDIA) are two of the AI models people compare most. Here is how they stack up on benchmarks, price and capabilities, and which one to pick in 2026.
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Nemotron Nano 9B v2 is better at 3 benchmarks (GPQA, LiveCodeBench, MATH-500). Nemotron Nano 9B v2 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Choose DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B if…
- you are already invested in the DeepSeek ecosystem
Choose Nemotron Nano 9B v2 if…
- you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 3 of 3 shared benchmarks
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Aug 2025
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Nemotron Nano 9B v2 is better at 3 benchmarks (GPQA, LiveCodeBench, MATH-500).
Nemotron Nano 9B v2 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Human preference votes
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Nemotron Nano 9B v2 has 7.1B more parameters than DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B, making it 400.0% larger.
License
Usage and distribution terms
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B is licensed under MIT, while Nemotron Nano 9B v2 uses NVIDIA Open Model License Agreement .
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
MIT
Open weights
NVIDIA Open Model License Agreement
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B was released on 2025-01-20, while Nemotron Nano 9B v2 was released on 2025-08-18.
Nemotron Nano 9B v2 is 7 months newer than DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B.
Jan 20, 2025
1.4 years ago
Aug 18, 2025
9 months ago
7mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Nemotron Nano 9B v2 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2024-09-01, while DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm Nemotron Nano 9B v2's training data extends to 2024-09-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B's cutoff date.
—
Sep 2024
Outputs Comparison
Key Takeaways
No standout differentiators in the data we have for this pair.
Detailed Comparison
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FAQ
Common questions about DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B vs Nemotron Nano 9B v2.