# Kimi K3 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Kimi K3 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/kimi-k3-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4
- Last updated: October 2, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 5
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.8

## Quick Verdict

Kimi K3 leads by point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence. Choose using the category evidence and your own workload tests.

## Summary

- Kimi K3 has the higher overall point estimate 72.14 to 20.15. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.
- The clearest category separation is in agentic, where the averages are 68.1 for Kimi K3 and 8 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.1 in Agentic, with scores of 88.3% 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.
- Kimi K3 also has the larger context window at 1.05M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Kimi K3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Moonshot AI | NVIDIA |
| Type | Pending | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 1.05M | 1M |
| Overall Score | 72.14 | 20.15 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 48 | 13 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $3.00 / $15.00 | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Directional only
- Kimi K3 public-lane score: 68.1 (Supported · #8/119)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 8 (Estimated · #113/119)

| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 88.3% | 23.5% | Kimi K3 |
| BrowseComp | 91.2% | 36.8% | Kimi K3 |
| DeepSearchQA | 95.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Toolathlon-Verified | 73.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | 84.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| AutomationBench | 30.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| JobBench | 52.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| APEX-Agents | 37.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SpreadsheetBench 2 | 34.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| DECK-Bench | 73.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 80.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ApprenticeBench | 18% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| PinchBench | Coming soon | 83.4% | Coming soon |
| τ³-bench results | Coming soon | 9.5% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Directional only
- Kimi K3 public-lane score: 61.4 (Supported · #18/144)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 12.1 (Estimated · #140/144)

| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| DeepSWE | 67.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CursorBench 3.2 | 60.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierSWE | 81.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ProgramBench | 77.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Kimi Code Bench v2 | 72.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| sweMarathon | 42% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| PostTrain Bench | 36.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MLS-Bench Lite | 48.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| VulcanBench v3 | 73.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OpenHarmony Bench | 57.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierSWE v2 | 25.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 87.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 93.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| PostTrainBench v1.1 | 32.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Verified | Coming soon | 52.8% | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | Coming soon | 36.5% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 23.5% | Coming soon |
| SciCode | Coming soon | 31.4% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Kimi K3 public-lane score: 65.8 (#18/27)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 56 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)

| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| ARC-AGI-1 | 94.50% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 60.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- Kimi K3 public-lane score: 89.4 (#1/49)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| OfficeQA Pro | 63.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMMU-Pro | 81.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMMU-Pro w/ Python | 83.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CharXiv w/o tools | 84.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CharXiv | 91.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MathVision | 94.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MathVision w/ Python | 97.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BabyVision w/ Python | 85.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ZeroBench | 23.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ZeroBench w/ Python | 41.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| WorldVQA ForceAnswer | 51.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OmniDocBench | 91.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| PerceptionBench | 58.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Directional only
- Kimi K3 public-lane score: 67.9 (Supported · #18/171)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 22.4 (Estimated · #164/171)

| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 93.5% | 75.6% | Kimi K3 |
| GPQA-D | 93.5% | 75.6% | Kimi K3 |
| HLE | 56% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | 43.5% | 10.5% | Kimi K3 |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 92.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 88.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro | Coming soon | 81.6% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Not comparable
- Kimi K3 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 67.8 (#67/125)

| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Gray Swan IPI (15 attempts) | 52.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| IFBench | Coming soon | 72.9% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Kimi K3 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4?

Kimi K3 has the higher overall point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.

### Where is the biggest gap between Kimi K3 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4?

The widest category gap is in agentic, where the averages are 68.1 for Kimi K3 and 8 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4.

### How many benchmarks does Kimi K3 cover on BenchLM?

Kimi K3 currently has 48 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

- [Kimi K3 vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/gpt-6-astra-vs-kimi-k3)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/gpt-6-astra-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)
- [Kimi K3 vs Claude Opus 5.5](/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-kimi-k3)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 vs Claude Opus 5.5](/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)

## Explore More

- [Kimi K3 profile](/models/kimi-k3)
- [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)