NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning alternatives, graded
thecontinuitylayer.com/alternatives/nemotron-3-5-lightning4 of the 11 open models on the record score higher than NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning's 5 of 7 (grade B): MiMo-V2.6-Pro (6½, A), Phi-4-reasoning-vision-15B (6½, A), Gemma 4 (6, A−) lead the ranking. Every grade is read from the maker's own page, checked 3 November 2026, never from a review.
Every open model on the record, ranked
NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning’s own row is shaded. The five columns are the tests a person switching asks about first; each product page has every test, with the maker’s line and the source. Where the test is about training, no is the good answer and is colored as such.
| open model | Grade | License | Download | Runs locally | Hosted price | Training |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MiMo-V2.6-Pro#1 · Xiaomi | A6½/7 | |||||
| Phi-4-reasoning-vision-15B#2 · Microsoft | A6½/7 | |||||
| Gemma 4#3 · Google DeepMind | A−6/7 | |||||
| DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash#4 · DeepSeek | B+5½/7 | |||||
| Mistral Large 4#5 · Mistral AI | B5/7 | |||||
| gpt-oss-120b#6 · OpenAI | B5/7 | |||||
| NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning#7 · NVIDIA · this one | B5/7 | |||||
| Kimi K3#8 · Moonshot AI | B−4½/7 | |||||
| Qwen3.8#9 · Alibaba (Qwen) | B−4½/7 | |||||
| GLM-5.3#10 · Z.ai | C4/7 | |||||
| Muse Spark Open#11 · Meta | C−3½/7 | |||||
| Olmo 3.1 32B#12 · Ai2 (Allen Institute for AI) | C−3½/7 |
- License · Is it under an open license?
- Download · Can you download its weights?
- Runs locally · Does the maker say what it takes to run it on your own machine?
- Hosted price · Does the maker publish a price for its hosted it?
- Training · Does the maker train on your prompts when you use its hosted it?
NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning alternatives, by what matters
6 open models under an open license
- A MiMo-V2.6-Pro
- A Phi-4-reasoning-vision-15B
- A− Gemma 4
- B+ DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
- B gpt-oss-120b
- C− Olmo 3.1 32B
NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning's grade on this test: partly.
10 open models whose weights download without a form
- A MiMo-V2.6-Pro
- A Phi-4-reasoning-vision-15B
- A− Gemma 4
- B+ DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
- B Mistral Large 4
- B gpt-oss-120b
- B− Kimi K3
- B− Qwen3.8
- C GLM-5.3
- C− Olmo 3.1 32B
NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning passes this test too.
6 open models with a published hosted price
NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning's grade on this test: partly.
2 open models whose maker says hosted prompts are not used for training
NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning's grade on this test: not stated.
Alternatives to the others
- MiMo-V2.6-Pro alternatives
- Phi-4-reasoning-vision-15B alternatives
- Gemma 4 alternatives
- DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash alternatives
- Mistral Large 4 alternatives
- gpt-oss-120b alternatives
- Kimi K3 alternatives
- Qwen3.8 alternatives
- GLM-5.3 alternatives
- Muse Spark Open alternatives
- Olmo 3.1 32B alternatives
The whole shelf: Open models. How the grades are made: How we grade. No maker pays for a place or a grade.