NvidiaGeneralFreeReleased 11 August 2026
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free) pricing, context and benchmark
NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is an open mixture-of-experts model from NVIDIA, with 3B active parameters out of 30B total.
1M
Input context
66K
Output context
Free
Official input
Free
Official output
n/a
AA index
01 · Model Overview
Everything that matters, in one table
Context, pricing, cache, modalities and tooling, from the model registry and Artificial Analysis.
| Model | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free) |
| Model ID | nvidia/nemotron-3.5-lightning:free |
| Provider | Nvidia |
| Release date | 11 August 2026 |
| Status | Generally available |
| Input context | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Output context | 65,536 tokens |
| Official input pricing | Free per 1M tokens |
| Official output pricing | Free per 1M tokens |
| Cache read pricing | Not published |
| Market input pricing | Free per 1M (cheapest route) |
| Market output pricing | Free per 1M (cheapest route) |
| Input modalities | text |
| Output modalities | text |
| Reasoning control | Not exposed |
| Tool support | Text generation only |
| Tokenizer | Other |
| Provider routes | 1 endpoint |
| Artificial Analysis index | Not published |
| Speed | Not published |
| Knowledge cutoff | Not publicly stated |
Input and output support
| Modality | Input | Output | Billed at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Text | ✓ yes | ✓ yes | Free in |
| Image | no | no | not supported |
| Audio | no | no | not supported |
| Video | no | no | not supported |
| File (PDF) | no | no | not supported |
02 · Overview
What is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free)?
NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is an open mixture-of-experts model from NVIDIA, with 3B active parameters out of 30B total.
It is suited for high-throughput agentic workloads and specialized tasks that...
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free) carries a 1M token window, uses the Other tokenizer and is served by Nvidia. On Hoodgen it sits in the General tier of the model menu next to its siblings, so you can switch mid conversation without losing the thread.
03 · Release
Release and what changed from the previous version
Released11 August 2026
| Property | Nemotron 3 Ultra | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Released | 2026 | 2026 | Same release window |
| Context | 262K | 1M | Changed |
| Max output | 183K | 66K | Changed |
| Input price | $0.5 | Free | Cheaper |
| Output price | $2.2 | Free | Cheaper |
| Input modalities | text | text | Unchanged |
| AA index | n/a | n/a | Newer benchmark run |
07 · Use cases
What can you do with Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free)?
Everyday writing
Drafts, rewrites, summaries and replies.
Research
Source material condensed with the key numbers kept.
Chat
General questions where latency and cost both matter.
Tooling inside Hoodgen
Writer, Humanizer, Coding and the rest of the tool suite.
09 · Pricing
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free) pricing
Official pricing
List price
Free / 1M in
Free / 1M out
- 1M context
- text input
Cheapest route
Free / 1M in
Free / 1M out
- 1 route on OpenRouter
- What Hoodgen routes to first
- Same model, lower bill
Market pricing, every route
| Provider | Tier | Input | Output | Cache read | Uptime 24h |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nvidia | standard | Free | Free | n/a | 100.0% |
API pricing and cost calculator
| Rate | Per call | Total | Credits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheapest route | $0.0000 | $0.00 | 1 |
| List price | $0.0000 | $0.00 | 1 |
10 · Developers
API and developer information
| Model ID | nvidia/nemotron-3.5-lightning:free |
| Endpoint | https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions |
| Parameters | prompt and max_tokens |
| Streaming | Yes, server sent events |
| Modality string | text->text |
| Max prompt tokens | 1,000,000 |
| Max completion tokens | 65,536 |
curl https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENROUTER_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "nvidia/nemotron-3.5-lightning:free",
"messages": [{ "role": "user", "content": "Summarise this document." }],
"max_tokens": 1024
}'11 · Limitations
Model limitations
| Text only output | It cannot generate images, audio or video. Pair it with an image model on Hoodgen when you need visuals. |
| Output cap | 65,536 tokens per request. Long deliverables have to be chunked. |
| Benchmarks not published | Artificial Analysis does not publish an Intelligence Index for this release, so no benchmark score is claimed here. |
| Knowledge cutoff | The provider does not state a fixed cutoff for every release. Verify very recent events against search. |
| Rate limits | Free routes are rate limited by the provider, so heavy batch jobs should use a paid route. |
12 · Comparison
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free) vs other Nvidia models
| Model | Context | Input /1M | Output /1M | AA index | Released |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free) | 1M | Free | Free | n/a | 2026 |
| Nemotron 3 Ultra | 262K | $0.5 | $2.2 | n/a | 2026 |
| Nemotron 3 Super (free) | 1.05M | Free | Free | n/a | 2026 |
| Nemotron 3 Ultra (free) | 1M | Free | Free | n/a | 2026 |
13 · Privacy
Privacy and data policy
- On Hoodgen, prompts and attachments answer that request and stay in your conversation history so you can reopen it. They are not used to train models.
- Requests route through OpenRouter to Nvidia and are covered by that provider's API terms.
- Do not paste secrets or personal data you would not send to any hosted model.
14 · FAQ
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free) questions, answered
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free) is a general model from Nvidia, released 11 August 2026. NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is an open mixture-of-experts model from NVIDIA, with 3B active parameters out of 30B total.
✦
Start chatting with Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free)
Free to try on Hoodgen AI, with a live credit estimate before every send. No API key, no setup.