Claude Sonnet 5 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B): Specs & Benchmark Comparison
Claude Sonnet 5 is developed by Anthropic, while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) comes from NVIDIA. Claude Sonnet 5 was released in June 2026, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) followed 2 months later in August 2026. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) has a published size of about 30 billion parameters; Anthropic has not disclosed the parameter count of Claude Sonnet 5.
The two models share 4 published benchmarks. Claude Sonnet 5 leads on 4 of them. The widest gaps are on BrowseComp, where Claude Sonnet 5 scores 84.7% against 37.0%; Humanity's Last Exam, where Claude Sonnet 5 scores 57.4% against 11.7%. Averaged across everything we track, Claude Sonnet 5 sits at 58.4% and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) at 45.3%.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is the cheaper API at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens, roughly 40 times cheaper than Claude Sonnet 5 at $2 and $10. Claude Sonnet 5 takes the larger context window at 1M tokens, compared with 262K for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B). Claude Sonnet 5 accepts text and images as input, while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) accepts text.
| Characteristic | Claude Sonnet 5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Anthropic | NVIDIA |
| Release Date | June 30, 2026 | August 11, 2026 |
| Parameters | — | 30B |
| Multimodal | Yes | No |
| Context (input) | 1.0M | 262K |
| Context (output) | 64K | 262K |
| Input Price / 1M | $2.00 | $0.05 |
| Output Price / 1M | $10.00 | $0.20 |
| Average Score | 58.4% | 45.3% |
| Benchmarks | ||
| BrowseComp | 84.7% | 37.0% |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 57.4% | 11.7% |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 78.3% | 39.3% |
| SWE-Bench Verified | 85.2% | 51.6% |
Visual Benchmark Comparison
Verdict
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) leads in 2 out of 5 comparison categories.
Both models show comparable average scores: Claude Sonnet 5 — 0.6, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) — 0.5.
On SWE-Bench, both models are nearly equal: Claude Sonnet 5 — 0.9, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) — 0.5.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is 48.0x cheaper: input $0.05/1M vs $2.00/1M tokens.
Claude Sonnet 5 supports a larger context: 1M vs 262K tokens.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is newer: released 8/11/2026 vs 6/30/2026.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better for coding — Claude Sonnet 5 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?
Which model is cheaper — Claude Sonnet 5 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?
Which has a larger context window — Claude Sonnet 5 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?
The Claude Sonnet 5 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) comparison is updated for 2026. Data includes benchmark results, API pricing, context window size and other specifications. For more detailed information, visit the Claude Sonnet 5 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.