Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite by Google or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning by NVIDIA? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite scores 2.7 points higher (15.6 vs 12.9) but costs 1.7× as much to run the benchmark ($156 vs $92.8; both mid-range class). Pick Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Nemotron 3.5 Lightning.
| Metric | Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 15.6 | 12.9 | −17.3% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 17.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $155.87 | $92.76 | −40.5% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 40.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.09s | 8.98s | +47.5% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 47.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $1.50 | $0.06 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text |
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite: 17.3% less intelligence, 40.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 47.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Max) scores 38.10 for $122.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) scores 34.60 for $66.8.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-LiteNemotron 3.5 LightningToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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