Model comparison

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

Input: $0.15
Output: $0.60
Context: 1M tokens
Released: 2026-09-10

Full model page →NVIDIANemotron 3.5 Lightning

Input: $0.08
Output: $0.20
Context: 1M (256K on a single H100)
Released: 2026-08-11

Short answer

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash scores higher on 2 of the 3 benchmarks both models report (the other leads on 1); Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper on input tokens ($0.1 vs $0.2 per 1M, 1.9×).

Specs and pricing side by side

Spec	DeepSeek V4.1 Flash	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Maker	DeepSeek	NVIDIA
Released	2026-09-10	2026-08-11
Context window	1M tokens	1M (256K on a single H100)
Input price	$0.15	$0.08
Output price	$0.60	$0.20
Parameters	552B backbone + 196B Engram · 8B active on prefill, 16B on decode	30B total · 3B active (Mixture-of-Experts)
License	MIT	OpenMDW-1.1
Weights	Open weights	Open weightssame
Modalities	Text, Vision	Text
Knowledge cutoff	not published	September 2025 (pre-training); May 2026…

Not published by either maker: max output.

Benchmarks both models report

Benchmark	DeepSeek V4.1 Flash	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Terminal-Bench 2.1	90.6%	24.58%
GPQA Diamond	90.9%	75.44%
MMLU-Pro	74.1%	81.94%

Scores are as published by each maker or its cited source; harness, reasoning effort and date can differ between rows, so treat small gaps as ties. Sources are listed on each model page.

Which one should you pick?

Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash if…

You care about Terminal-Bench 2.1, GPQA Diamond (it scores higher on 2 shared benchmarks).
You need Vision input, which Nemotron 3.5 Lightning lacks.
Your use case is: agentic coding and terminal work where the published Terminal-Bench and DeepSWE scores matter.

Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning if…

You care about MMLU-Pro (it scores higher on 1 shared benchmark).
Cost matters: input tokens cost 1.9× less ($0.1 vs $0.2 per 1M).
Your use case is: the execution tier of an agent stack, handling routine tool calls and sub-steps while a larger model makes the hard decisions.

FAQ

Which is better, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash scores higher on 2 of the 3 benchmarks both models report (the other leads on 1); Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper on input tokens ($0.1 vs $0.2 per 1M, 1.9×). The better pick depends on whether you value benchmark scores, price per token, context length or openness for your workload.

How much cheaper is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash: $0.15 input, $0.60 output. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: $0.08 input, $0.20 output (list API prices as published by each maker).

What are the context windows of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash offers 1M tokens; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning offers 1M (256K on a single H100).

Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash newer than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash was released 2026-09-10; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning was released 2026-08-11.