Head to head · Open-weight models · October 2026 research run

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL vs Novita AI

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL scores 58.9 (C) on agent readiness against Novita AI's 53.5 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Novita AI leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth. Both do open-weight models.

Best model APIs and inference for AI agents · All 326 models comparisons

Which one, for what

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL C

Best for Agents that read documents, charts, screenshots and short videos and need tool calls in one open model, prototyped free on NVIDIA's endpoint and moved to a partner host or own GPUs for production.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 58 against 28
  • Schema & documentation, 74 against 62
  • Maintenance & community, 71 against 62

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

NVIDIA says its hosted endpoints are for prototyping, research and testing only, and production use needs a partner endpoint or self-hosting

Novita AI D

Best for Agents that want many open-weight models at per-token prices behind one OpenAI-style key, with keys that can be limited by model, IP and expiry.

Ahead on

  • Agent ergonomics, 72 against 65
  • Security & auth, 65 against 51

Watch for

No status page or SLA was found on the home page, the docs index or the docs site map. The home page states 99.5% uptime with no supporting document

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runNemotron 3.5 Super VLNovita AIEdge
Reliability16%205828Nemotron 3.5 Super VL +30
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27462Nemotron 3.5 Super VL +12
Agent ergonomics13%16.26572Novita AI +7
Security & auth14%17.55165Novita AI +14
Payments & pricing10%12.53535even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87162Nemotron 3.5 Super VL +9
Transparency & trust7%8.85956Nemotron 3.5 Super VL +3
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 58.9/100D 53.5/100

Facts side by side

FactNemotron 3.5 Super VLNovita AI
KindModel APIModel API
VendorNVIDIANovita AI
Hosted endpointhttps://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1https://api.novita.ai/openai
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreePay per use
x402nono
LicenceOpenMDW-1.1 for the weights (permissive, not an OSI licence). The hosted trial endpoint is under the NVIDIA API Trial Terms of Service, and the NIM container under the NVIDIA Software Licence AgreementProprietary service under the Novita AI Terms of Service. The agent skill and the MCP server are MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-152026-09-28
Terms last updated2026-08-05
Privacy policy last updatedno date given2026-05-13
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Popularitynone6 stars, 1.4k npm/wk
Agent reviews3/5 (4)none

Verdicts

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL

NVIDIA's free endpoint takes OpenAI-format requests with typed tool calls, JSON Schema output and an OpenAPI 3.1 file, and the weights run anywhere under a permissive licence. The hosted route is a trial for prototyping only, at up to 40 requests a minute, under trial terms we couldn't read, and its page says use is logged to improve NVIDIA products.

Novita AI

Per-token prices for about 140 language models are public, and each key can carry an expiry, a model allowlist and a source IP allowlist. No status page, SLA or security.txt was found, the per-model rate limit figures are drawn by script, and both vendor SDK repositories are archived while the docs still point to them.

Before you call either

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL

  1. Set chat_template_kwargs to {"enable_thinking": false} for short tasks. Reasoning is on by default, and reasoning tokens share the max_tokens budget
  2. Read reasoning from reasoning_content and the answer from content, and set stream explicitly since the API reference defaults it to true
  3. Don't send confidential or personal data to the hosted trial. The model page asks callers not to and says use is logged
  4. Back off and retry on throttling. Limits are up to 40 requests a minute and 10,000 a day, and no 429 or Retry-After behaviour is documented
  5. For production, use a partner endpoint or serve the weights. When self-hosting with NVIDIA's vLLM command, drop --allowed-local-media-path=/ unless clients are trusted

Novita AI

  1. Set the OpenAI client base URL to https://api.novita.ai/openai and send the key as Authorization: Bearer. Keys start with sk_
  2. Do not close a connection to stop generation. A request that reached the model is billed in full under status 499, so cap output with max_tokens
  3. On 429, check whether the code is RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED or TOKEN_LIMIT_EXCEEDED and back off exponentially. No Retry-After header is documented
  4. Read the changelog for retirement notices before pinning a model id. One retirement in October 2026 came with 11 days' notice
  5. Ask the account owner for a key with an expiry, a model access policy and an IP allowlist. Keys are created and deleted only in the console

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Nemotron 3.5 Super VL or Novita AI?

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL scores 58.9 (C) on agent readiness against Novita AI's 53.5 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Novita AI leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth.

Do Nemotron 3.5 Super VL and Novita AI need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call Nemotron 3.5 Super VL and Novita AI without installing anything?

Yes. Nemotron 3.5 Super VL has a hosted endpoint at https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1 and Novita AI at https://api.novita.ai/openai.

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