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Van Data Team

text model comparison

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning are both current text models, from DeepSeek and NVIDIA. On Arena Text, DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash scores 1476 Elo and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 1353 Elo (Arena, measured October 28, 2026). Both accept 1,000,000 tokens of context.

Higher Arena Text
DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash1476 Elo against 1353 Elo
Newer release
DeepSeek-V4.1-FlashSep 2026 against Aug 2026

Data verified November 3, 2026 · Dataset 2026-11-03

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Side by side

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, line by line

Prices in effect today, compared at the same tier wherever both list one. The better value in each row is highlighted.

FactDeepSeek-V4.1-FlashNemotron 3.5 Lightning
Price
Price per 1M input tokens$0.30Not listed
Price per 1M output tokens$1.20Not listed
Independent benchmarks
Arena Text1476 Elo (#21 of 51) (better)1353 Elo (#49 of 51)
Arena WebDev1665 Elo (#12 of 45)Not measured
FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)71.2% (#23 of 42)Not measured
GPQA Diamond93.2% (#16 of 41)Not measured
SimpleQA Verified42.5% (#27 of 38)Not measured
Specs
ProviderDeepSeekNVIDIA
Release dateSeptember 10, 2026August 11, 2026
AccessAPI and open weightsopen weights
Context window1,000,000 tokens1,000,000 tokens
Max output384,000 tokensNot reported
Inputtext, imagetext
Outputtexttext

Scores:Arena · 2026-11-03Epoch AI · 2026-11-03

Open both in the interactive comparison

Charts

Against every current text model

Where DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning land among the current models of their task, on every independent benchmark, on price and on context.

Where each stands

On Arena Text, DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash ranks #21 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning #49 of 51 current models. Each bar is the share of current models it beats: on score, price and context.

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning among the current text models, one row per benchmark, price and context window.

Independent benchmarks

Arena Text

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash:#21of 51

1,476 Elo · ahead of 58%

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning:#49of 51

1,353 Elo · ahead of 4%

Arena WebDev

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash:#12of 45

1,665 Elo · ahead of 75%

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Not scored

FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash:#23of 42

71.2% · ahead of 46%

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Not scored

GPQA Diamond

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash:#16of 41

93.2% · ahead of 63%

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Not scored

SimpleQA Verified

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash:#27of 38

42.5% · ahead of 30%

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Not scored

Price and context

Price per 1M input tokens

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash:#11of 52

$0.30 · cheaper than 75%

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Not listed

Price per 1M output tokens

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash:#10of 52

$1.20 · cheaper than 76%

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Not listed

Context window

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash:#26of 64

1M tokens · longer than 22%

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning:#26of 64

1M tokens · longer than 22%

Scores fromArena · 2026-11-03Epoch AI · 2026-11-03

Quality against price

Arena Text · measured October 28, 2026

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash scores 1,476 at $0.525 (blended price per 1M tokens). The line joins the current models no other beats on both price and Arena Text score; hover any point to name it.

Quality against priceArena Text score against price for 43 text models, DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning marked.1,2501,3001,3501,4001,4501,5001,550$0.30$1$3$10MOST ATTRACTIVE QUADRANTMedian price $3Median 1,475Blended price per 1M tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scaleArena Text (Elo)DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
Quality against price: the data
Arena Text score against price for 43 text models, DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning marked.
ModelProviderBlended price per 1M tokensArena Text (Elo)
Gemini 4 ArgonGoogle$41,520
Claude Opus 5.5Anthropic$81,509
Muse WonderMeta$81,507
Claude Fable 5Anthropic$201,504
Claude Fable 5.1Anthropic$201,504
Gemini 3.8 FlashGoogle$1.501,496
Muse Spark 1.3Meta$21,495
Claude Opus 5Anthropic$101,492
Kimi K3Moonshot Kimi$61,488
GPT-5.6 SolOpenAI$81,485
Gemini 3.6 FlashGoogle$31,483
GPT-5.5OpenAI$111,482
Claude Opus 4.8Anthropic$101,482
Qwen3.8-MaxAlibaba Qwen$31,482
GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI$41,481
GLM-5.3Z.ai$2.151,481
MiMo-V2.6-ProXiaomi MiMo$0.541,480
Claude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic$41,477
GLM-5.3-FlashZ.ai$0.241,477
GPT-6 AstraOpenAI$201,476
DeepSeek-V4.1-FlashDeepSeek$0.521,476
GPT-5.4OpenAI$5.631,475
Gemini 3 Flash PreviewGoogle$1.131,473
Grok 4.20xAI$1.561,472
GPT-5.6 TerraOpenAI$4.501,467
Grok 4.5xAI$31,465
DeepSeek-V4-ProDeepSeek$1.981,465
Claude Sonnet 5Anthropic$41,462
GPT-6 SolOpenAI$41,458
Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteGoogle$0.851,456
Grok 4.6xAI$31,455
GPT-5.6 LunaOpenAI$0.451,453
MiMo-V2.6-FlashXiaomi MiMo$0.181,448
Step 5 PreviewStepFun$1.431,448
Grok 4.3xAI$1.561,442
GPT-6 LunaOpenAI$0.201,441
Grok 4.7xAI$31,441
Mistral Large 4Mistral AI$1.051,432
Claude Haiku 5.5Anthropic$0.201,425
GPT-4.1OpenAI$3.501,415
Solar Pro 4Upstage$0.521,388
GPT-4.1 miniOpenAI$0.701,383
GPT-4.1 nanoOpenAI$0.181,322

Cost

What each costs

Example workloads at each provider's listed rates, then every other rate either one lists. The cheaper figure in each row is highlighted.

Workload or rateDeepSeek-V4.1-FlashNemotron 3.5 Lightning
Other listed rates
1M input tokens, cached$0.006Not listed
1M input tokens, off peak$0.15Not listed
1M output tokens, off peak$0.60Not listed
1M input tokens, off-peak, cached$0.003Not listed

Your own bill will differ. These figures use list prices and example workloads. The AI Model Cost Audit reviews your real usage, shortlists models that score as well for each task for less, and estimates the savings.

Launch price $100, regular price $150

Book the cost audit

Verdict

When to choose each

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash

Where it leads

  • Higher Arena Text score, 1476 Elo vs 1353 Elo
  • Accepts image input
  • A cached-input rate, $0.006 per 1M tokens

Best for

  • High-volume agent and multimodal workloads where per-token cost dominates
  • Teams that want a frontier-adjacent model they can also self-host under MIT terms

Watch out for

  • The recorded API rates are the peak-hour prices; DeepSeek charges half outside 01:00-04:00 and 06:00-10:00 UTC on weekdays
  • Running the open weights moves cost to your own infrastructure, which the token rates here do not represent
  • Epoch AI and Arena WebDev scored build 1017, which the API serves; Arena Text has rated only the September build so far
Full DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash profile

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

Where it leads

No measured lead over DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash in this data.

Best for

  • Fast, low-cost agent subtasks such as tool calls
  • Self-hosted agents on one GPU

Watch out for

  • On NVIDIA's own table it trails Qwen 3.6 35B A3B on SWE-bench Verified (51.56 against 70.12)
  • NVIDIA sells no per-token API for it; hosted prices come from third parties
Full Nemotron 3.5 Lightning profile

From benchmark to production

Building on DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Public scores rarely hold on your own data. We test both models on your real tasks, then build the agent or pipeline around the one that wins.

AI Model Cost AuditLaunch price $100, regular price $150What the audit includes

Book the cost auditAI agent development

FAQ

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning FAQ

Do DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning discount cached input?

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash lists a cached-input rate of $0.006 per 1M tokens, 98% below its standard input rate. No cached-input rate is listed for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning.

Which scores higher on independent benchmarks, DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash leads on Arena Text, 1476 Elo to 1353 Elo. Scores are independent evaluations, not either vendor's launch figures.

Which has the larger context window, DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Both accept 1,000,000 tokens of context.

How do DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning differ in features?

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash takes text and image input; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning takes text.

Can I run DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning myself?

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash is released as open weights you can run yourself; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is available through its provider's API only.

Further reading

More on DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

Articles on DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

Related comparisons

Production evaluation

Choosing between DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Public benchmarks narrow the shortlist. We run both on your own tasks, data and cost limits, then build the routing and review controls to run the winner in production.

  • A head-to-head evaluation on your real workload
  • Routing between models by cost and difficulty
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