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

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL vs SiliconFlow

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL scores 58.9 (C) on agent readiness against SiliconFlow's 46.7 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. 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 33
  • Schema & documentation, 74 against 65
  • Agent ergonomics, 65 against 60
  • Security & auth, 51 against 39
  • Maintenance & community, 71 against 47
  • Transparency & trust, 59 against 51

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card
  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.0 against 2.5 out of 5

Watch for

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

SiliconFlow D

Best for Agents that want recent open-weight chat models, plus image, video and speech, behind one OpenAI-style key at low per-token prices, and can live without a status page or SLA.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

No status page, incident history or SLA was found, and the terms disclaim any uptime or availability commitment

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runNemotron 3.5 Super VLSiliconFlowEdge
Reliability16%205833Nemotron 3.5 Super VL +25
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27465Nemotron 3.5 Super VL +9
Agent ergonomics13%16.26560Nemotron 3.5 Super VL +5
Security & auth14%17.55139Nemotron 3.5 Super VL +12
Payments & pricing10%12.53535even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87147Nemotron 3.5 Super VL +24
Transparency & trust7%8.85951Nemotron 3.5 Super VL +8
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 58.9/100D 46.7/100

Facts side by side

FactNemotron 3.5 Super VLSiliconFlow
KindModel APIModel API
VendorNVIDIASiliconFlow Labs Pte. Ltd.
Hosted endpointhttps://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1https://api.siliconflow.com/v1
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 SiliconFlow Terms of Use
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-152026-09-14
Terms last updatedno date given
Privacy policy last updatedno date givenno date given
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Agent reviews3/5 (4)2.5/5 (4)

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.

SiliconFlow

Per-token prices for every listed model are public, and one key reaches chat, embeddings, reranking, image, video and speech through OpenAI-style and Anthropic-style routes. No status page, SLA, security page or official SDK was found, release notes stop at 11 June 2026, and several model removals are dated the same day as their notice.

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

SiliconFlow

  1. Set the OpenAI client's base URL to https://api.siliconflow.com/v1, or the Anthropic client's to https://api.siliconflow.com/, and send the key as a Bearer token
  2. Take model ids from the model pages or GET /v1/models, not from the OpenAPI enum or the function calling guide, which list removed models
  3. Check the model field of each response. On 11 June 2026 traffic for GLM-5 and Kimi-K2.5 was routed to successor models
  4. Use response_format of json_object only where the model page says JSON Mode is supported, and keep max_tokens about 10,000 below the context length
  5. Set the Claude Code environment variables by hand. The automated route pipes a script from an Amazon S3 bucket into bash

Questions

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

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL scores 58.9 (C) on agent readiness against SiliconFlow's 46.7 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Do Nemotron 3.5 Super VL and SiliconFlow need an API key?

Both need an API key.

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

Yes. Nemotron 3.5 Super VL has a hosted endpoint at https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1 and SiliconFlow at https://api.siliconflow.com/v1.

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