RunAIHow.comLearn How To Run LocallyUpdated: OCTOBER 2026
Image Gen — Model Guides
Guides to the most popular image-generation models and services — how they work, what they cost, and where their licenses draw the line.
FLUX (Black Forest Labs)
Open + cloudBlack Forest Labs
The open-weight image generation family that set the current quality standard — from Apache-licensed to API-only tiers.
5 min read · Open guide →
Stable Diffusion 3.5
Open weightsStability AI
The most extensible image model family — a huge fine-tune and LoRA ecosystem running on modest hardware.
5 min read · Open guide →
Midjourney
Cloud onlyMidjourney, Inc.
The subscription service that defined AI art aesthetics — closed model, commercial rights via paid plans.
4 min read · Open guide →
GPT Image (OpenAI)
Cloud onlyOpenAI
OpenAI's image generation family — instruction-following editing and world-knowledge-aware renders via API.
4 min read · Open guide →
Adobe Firefly
Cloud onlyAdobe
The commercially-safe image generator — trained on licensed content, integrated into Photoshop, backed by enterprise indemnification.
4 min read · Open guide →
Qwen-Image 20B
Open weightsAlibaba
Alibaba's open 20B image model — best-in-class text rendering (including Chinese) with strong editing, on a 16–24 GB GPU.
5 min read · Open guide →
HiDream-I1 17B
Open weightsHiDream.ai
A 17B open-weights image model that punches at the top of community quality rankings — Apache-licensed.
4 min read · Open guide →
Stable Diffusion XL
Open weightsStability AI
The veteran that still earns its slot — SDXL runs on 8 GB cards and anchors the largest fine-tune ecosystem in image generation.
4 min read · Open guide →
Also see the blog for deeper guides on hardware, quantization, and costs.