# Inkling vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Inkling and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/inkling-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4
- Last updated: September 24, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 8
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.7

## Quick Verdict

Pick Inkling if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Inkling leads overall 54.17 to 19.1.
- The clearest category separation is in knowledge, where the averages are 53.5 for Inkling and 20.7 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.1 in Agentic, with scores of 63.8% and 23.5%.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Inkling | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Thinking Machines Lab | NVIDIA |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Hybrid | Reasoning |
| Context | 1M | 1M |
| Overall Score | 54.17 | 19.1 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 21 | 13 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $1.87 / $4.68 | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Directional only
- Inkling public-lane score: 36.2 (Supported · #51/105)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 7.3 (Estimated · #104/105)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 63.8% | 23.5% | Inkling |
| BrowseComp | 77.1% | 36.8% | Inkling |
| MCP Atlas | 74.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 47.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| PinchBench | Coming soon | 83.4% | Coming soon |
| τ³-bench results | Coming soon | 9.5% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Directional only
- Inkling public-lane score: 36.7 (Supported · #66/135)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 11.4 (Estimated · #135/135)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 77.6% | 52.8% | Inkling |
| SWE-bench Pro | 54.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 63.8% | 23.5% | Inkling |
| FrontierSWE v2 | 4.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 85.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 77.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | Coming soon | 36.5% | Coming soon |
| SciCode | Coming soon | 31.4% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Inkling public-lane score: 75.2 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 55.9 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- Inkling public-lane score: 47.6 (#41/50)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Inkling | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU-Pro | 73.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CharXiv | 82% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CharXiv w/o tools | 78.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Directional only
- Inkling public-lane score: 53.5 (Supported · #45/158)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 20.7 (Estimated · #154/158)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 87.9% | 75.6% | Inkling |
| GPQA-D | 87.9% | 75.6% | Inkling |
| HLE | 46% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | 30% | 10.5% | Inkling |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 87.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 86.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro | Coming soon | 81.6% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Inkling
- Inkling public-lane score: 83.9 (#44/124)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 68.5 (#67/124)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 79.8% | 72.9% | Inkling |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Inkling public-lane score: 78.5 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Inkling | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME26 | 97.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Inkling or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4?

Inkling is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Inkling and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4?

The widest category gap is in knowledge, where the averages are 53.5 for Inkling and 20.7 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4.

### How many benchmarks does Inkling cover on BenchLM?

Inkling currently has 21 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 cover on BenchLM?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 currently has 13 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Inkling vs Inkling-Small](/compare/inkling-vs-inkling-small)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 vs Inkling-Small](/compare/inkling-small-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)
- [Inkling vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/gpt-6-astra-vs-inkling)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/gpt-6-astra-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)

## Explore More

- [Inkling profile](/models/inkling)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 profile](/models/nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)