10 best AI image generators of 2025

Many people’s first glimpse of generative AI was through DALL-E, Midjourney, or Stable Diffusion, all of which were generating images from text prompts months before ChatGPT launched. Users wrote out what they wanted in natural language, and the models would use that to convert random numbers into images in less than a minute.

Since then, AI image generation has grown from a toy into a workplace staple. Training and algorithm updates continue to help overcome issues when it comes to drawing hands and teeth or representing lighting, text, and depth of field. And as AI gets better at generating images, the number of AI image generation models has exploded, ranging from closed-source, big-name behemoths to scrappy, open-source lightweights.

But with proliferation comes the tyranny of choice. Sure, you no longer have to settle for blurry faces or hands with too many fingers. Instead, you have to wade through dozens of tools, each with different strengths, quirks, pricing models, and user-experience (UX) trade-offs.

We tested more than 40 AI image generators and narrowed the list down to 10 of the best, with each pick chosen for a specialized use case. So, whether you’re looking for photorealism, text generation, speed, bulk creation, or something even more niche, here are the best AI image generators out there.

What makes a great AI image generator?

Great AI models make it as easy as possible to create images based on inputs you provide. To make it onto our list, an image generator needed to be able to follow instructions, accommodate a range of styles, and offer high-resolution exports in common file formats. Most current models easily clear these benchmarks.

Beyond basic text-to-image generation, there are also dozens of features, tools, widgets, and capabilities specially suited for niche use cases. For example, the way one image generator handles image editing might make it especially useful for branded assets, while a different model’s novel approach to prompting makes it best for one-shot batch requests. It’s not necessarily about finding models that deliver the best images for everyone — it’s about knowing which models handle specific workflows better than the competition.

How we tested and selected the best image generators

AI image generators rely heavily on randomness to constantly deliver new and different outputs. That makes it hard to provide perfect comparisons. To make our comparisons fair and useful, we used the same prompts whenever possible. These prompts were designed to stress-test variables that AI image generators commonly struggle with, like action shots, text generation, and multiple people interacting with multiple objects . 

Prompt adherence and image quality weren’t the only factors. We also evaluated each tool for usability and flexibility. These apps needed to be easy to use, delivering usable results without much trial and error. In the end, the 10 tools we selected reliably produced shareable images after just one or two prompts and some light editing, inpainting, or remixing.

Best AI image generators in 2025: A quick comparison

Tool name	Best for	Visual strength	Prompt flexibility	Pricing
NightCafe	Unlimited free images	Surreal and fantastical styles	Prompt-based editing and creative upscaling	Starts at $6 per month
Ideogram	Adding text to images	Convincing signs and banners	User-provided instructions not required for coherent text in images	Starts at $8 per month
Dreamina	Creating stock images	Photorealistic images of people and places	Add as many specific details to your prompt as you want	Starts at $18 per month
Adobe Firefly	Permissioned training data	Action shots of human subjects	Prompt GPT Image 1, Imagen 4, and Flux	Starts at $10 per month
Recraft	Marketing assets	Product mock-ups	Stretch one generation over the curved surface of another	Starts at $12 per month
ChatGPT	Conversational text generation and editing	Flexible and nuanced styles	Prompt via back-and-forth chats	Starts at $20 per month
Midjourney	Stylish images	Creative, asymmetrical images	Use short and open-ended prompts	Starts at $20 per month
Reve	Prompts with lots of details	Images with lots of staged objects	Submit paragraphs-long prompts	$5 per 500 credits
Leonardo.Ai	Private generation and commercial rights	Variety of styles and references	Generate images based on real-time prompting and drawing	Starts at $12 per month
Civitai	Fine-tuning models	Hyperspecific characters	Choose from thousands of fine-tuned models	Starts at $10 per month

1. NightCafe: The best AI image generator for unlimited free images

By NightCafe Studio Pty Ltd

Pros:

• Fun social community
• Generous free plan
• Excellent list of models

Cons:

• No native mobile app
• Selfie generator isn’t great

Most AI image generators have social and community features. For our money, none of them makes those features as enjoyable and engaging as NightCafe does, which is why it’s especially disappointing that there is no native mobile app (yet).

You can, however, add the site to your phone’s home screen, which essentially “installs” it, stripping out most of the browser user interface (UI) so it looks like an app. That’s good enough for perusing, liking, and commenting on community generations, but it’s nowhere near sufficient for creating your own images, especially if you plan to participate in NightCafe’s daily challenges.

On the desktop, NightCafe is fantastic. It offers plenty of open-source models to choose from and does a nice job of burying some of the more complicated settings and levers to avoid overwhelming you in the beginning, without making them too hard to find when you’re ready. Generations were quick — usually taking less than five seconds — and had some of the best prompt adherence in our tests.

Plans/Pricing:

• Free plan includes unlimited base Stable Diffusion generations, plus daily allowances for premium models and settings
• AI Beginner plan ($5.99 per month) includes 100 credits, access to all models, 1 fine-tuning credit, and animated generations
• AI Hobbyist plan ($9.99 per month) includes all Beginner plan features plus double the credits
• AI Enthusiast plan ($19.99 per month) offers 500 credits, 2 fine-tuning credits, animated generations, and unlimited use of fast models
• AI Artist plan ($49.99 per month) includes 1,400 credits, 3 fine-tuning credits, animated generations, and unlimited use of fast models

G2 rating: 3.5/5

2. Ideogram: The best AI image generator for adding text to images

By Ideogram AI

Pros:

• Near-perfect text generation in images
• Excellent prompt adherence
• Batch generation is great (with paid plan)

Cons:

• Likes to add text when none was requested
• Image editor is limited

Ideogram is light-years ahead of every other model at adding text to images — nobody else comes close. What’s more, it’s usually pretty good at contextually adding text that you didn’t even request. When we asked for an image of Hermione Granger shopping for wands in Diagon Alley, for example, it put an Ollivander’s sign in the background, just legible enough through the bokeh effect. This tendency feels mostly like a feature, but it can occasionally feel like a bug when Ideogram proactively adds text somewhere you don’t want it. 

The spartan interface feels refreshing after testing a handful of generators that throw every possible image modification setting at you, especially considering how rarely Ideogram spits out unusable or uninteresting images. In terms of quality, its human subjects are on par with the likes of Adobe Firefly, and its artistic stylizations are almost as good as Midjourney’s. 

It’s worth keeping in mind that while there is a free trial with 12 slow credits, it does not include access to Ideogram’s image-to-image prompts. On paid plans, you can upload an image as a reference to generate an entirely new but similar image. You can also pop over to the editor, upload an image, and select which parts of the original image you want to transfer over to a new generation. You can, for example, upload an image of yourself, highlight your face, and type in a prompt to put yourself in a new environment or pose. Then, use the Extend feature to add even more to the scene.

If you need a bunch of stock images for a website or marketing collateral — especially visuals that contain your brand or product name — Ideogram’s Pro plan lets you upload a spreadsheet with a prompt in each row to generate everything in bulk.

Plans/Pricing:

• Free trial includes a one-time allowance of 12 slow credits
• Basic plan ($8 per month) includes 400 fast credits per month and 100 slow credits per day
• Plus plan ($20 per month) includes 1,000 fast credits per month, unlimited slow credits, and the ability to keep generations private
• Pro plan ($60 per month) includes 3,500 fast credits per month, unlimited slow credits, private generations, and batch generation

G2 rating: Not available

3. Dreamina: The best AI image generator for creating stock images

By Bytedance Pte. Ltd.

Pros:

• Great at handling specific instructions
• Better than most at adding text
• Image-to-image tool is really intuitive

Cons:

• Art prompts didn’t feel as reliable as with other tools
• Defaulted to older model at first

When we first signed up for Dreamina, it defaulted to one of its older models. We threw a couple of our standard tests at it, and the outputs were good enough to make this list, but they weren’t amazing. Once we discovered the option to work with a better model (Image 3.1), though, the photorealism improved drastically.

Backgrounds in the images were free of any immediately noticeable artifacts, and the images rarely had that overly polished or staged feel that is common when asking AI for something photorealistic. Dreamina is also much better than the average generator at correctly including minor or specific details from your prompt.

Another feature that stood out was Dreamina’s image reference prompt. Almost every AI image generator we tested included this feature, but most were either much more confusing or disappointing than what Dreamina offers. To use it, simply add a photo to your prompt area (drag and drop it or click the plus icon), select  what you want the AI to mimic (face, pose, background, etc.), and enter a prompt for what the overall output should look like. Depending on how picky you are, generations can be good enough to create AI headshots for a social media profile.

Dreamina’s more creative or artistic efforts didn’t impress us all that much. But as a realistic image generator, it is easy to use and consistently impressive.

Plans/Pricing:

• Free plan includes 150 credits per day
• Basic plan (starting at $16 per month) includes 3,700-plus credits, higher resolution and 60 fps videos, and watermark removal
• Standard plan ($38 per month) unlocks everything in Basic, plus a total of 15,000-plus credits
• Advanced plan ($77 per month) includes 50,000 credits

G2 rating: Not available

4. Adobe Firefly: The best AI image generator for permissioned training data

By Adobe

Pros:

• Conveniently integrates with other Adobe apps
• Includes access to GPT Image, Imagen 4, and Flux
• Great with human subjects

Cons:

• Generations take a long time
• Some feature limitations on lower-tier plans

There are several reasons you might choose the Adobe Firefly image generator over others. But one area where it really stands out  from any other tool is how it handles training data. “We do not mine content from the web to train Adobe Firefly. We do not and have never trained Adobe Firefly on customer content,” reads Adobe’s AI Ethics page. And while there is likely some wordsmithery happening there, Firefly did seem to be the most careful when it comes to intellectual property.

Beyond using only permissioned training data, Adobe’s AI image generator is deeply integrated with the company’s ever-expanding portfolio of other editing tools. Click on the three-button icon next to any generation and you’ll see options to open the image in Photoshop Web or Adobe Express. And, to our surprise, Firefly also lets you send prompts to GPT Image, Imagen 4, and Flux, making this arguably the best AI image editor for those models. 

Images of human subjects on the Firefly model — especially action shots — were noticeably better than those produced by other apps. It does especially well using bokeh effects and blurred backgrounds to create depth of field that is almost indistinguishable from real photographs. Combine that with Adobe’s famously capable Generative Fill and Generative Expand features (the latter of which can be found after clicking the former, for some reason), and Firefly is one of the best tools for professional designers and teams. The only major downside to Firefly is that it was fairly slow throughout our tests, taking over a minute for even basic prompts.

Plans/Pricing:

• Standard plan ($9.99 per month) includes 2,000 monthly credits, up to 20 five-second video generations, and access to one Firefly Board
• Pro plan ($29.99 per month) includes 7,000 monthly credits, up to 70 five-second video generations, and unlimited access to Firefly Boards
• Premium plan ($199.99 per month) includes 50,000 monthly credits, unlimited access to Firefly Video Model, and unlimited access to Firefly Boards
• Adobe Creative Cloud Pro plan ($69.99 per month) includes 4,000 monthly credits, up to 40 five-second video generations, unlimited access to Firefly Boards, and access to 20-plus Adobe creative apps

G2 rating: 4.6/5

5. Recraft: The best AI image generator for marketing teams

By Recraft Inc.

Pros:

• Canvas-style workspace
• Super intuitive product mock-up tools
• Decent typography design tools

Cons:

• Limited editing features

Recraft is the best way to include real images of your logo, product, and other marketing assets into AI-generated images — or to merge multiple AI-generated images into a single mash-up. From Recraft’s infinite canvas, you can select an image, click the Mockup button, and then drag another image onto the first one. When you do this, the image that you drag and drop will warp and distort to look like it’s printed on any surface within the original Mockup image. There are other apps that do this, but the Recraft experience felt the smoothest.

Another standout feature was the infinite canvas, which makes it easy to organize images and assets around ideas or topics, especially those generated by one of the dozens of specialized models. For a few extra credits, Recraft lets you prompt GPT-4o, Imagen 4, Flux, Ideogram, and HiDream. But, honestly, the in-house styles worked really well for creating marketing and branded images.

Generate an image of a highway billboard on the V3 Raw model, followed by a vector graphic with brand colors on the Cartoon model, and polished off using stylized text from the Playful Typographic model. Then combine everything using the drag-and-drop Mockup tool, and you’ve got a great looking asset. What’s more, Recraft has built-in vectorization and rasterization tools, as well as one of the best export lists, with options to download creations as PNG, JPEG, TIFF (CMYK), SVG, and Lottie files, all of which are available on the generous free plan.

Recraft also has all of the AI image editor greatest hits like one-click creative upscaling and background removal. For inpainting, simply outline specific areas and what you want to change. For outpainting, add a Frame to the canvas, drag a smaller image onto it, and click Recraft frame to expand the borders of the image with new, AI-generated visuals based on the original, smaller image. All in all, it’s a feature-packed app that doesn’t feel crowded or overwhelming.

Plans/Pricing:

• Free plan includes 30 credits and 3 image uploads per day
• Pro plan ($12 per month) includes 1,000 monthly credits, unlimited image uploads, commercial licenses on all your generated images, and faster generations
• Teams plan ($69 per month) includes everything in the Pro plan plus 9,000 monthly credits, shared workspaces, and team management features

G2 rating: 4.7/5

6. ChatGPT: The best AI image generator for conversational generation and editing

By OpenAI

Pros:

• Collaborative prompting
• Editing via natural language requests

Cons:

• Some of the slowest generations of all our tests
• No explicit controls over aspect ratio, number of outputs, etc.

AI image generators are perhaps the best possible example of the Blank Page dilemma. You can prompt them with anything you can fit into a textbox. That is a paralyzing amount of freedom. Ironically, chatbots themselves can help you overcome that, playing 21 questions with you to inspire new, human-generated ideas.

ChatGPT is particularly good at this, generating prompt ideas based on vague or even nonvisual goals. In many cases, you won’t like the suggestions. But you can explain why, and the chatbot will recalibrate, coming back with new options shaped by your ongoing conversation. And unlike other generators on this list, you can keep that back-and-forth going for quite some time, before finally asking ChatGPT to generate an image based on all of the context you have provided.

In some cases, this conversational approach is also the best way to edit images as well. You can describe specific areas or objects to change, possibly even including your motivations for those changes. That said, ChatGPT uses an autoregressive model, which makes it significantly slower than diffusion-based tools. That, combined with the fact that ChatGPT will only generate one image per prompt, means this is not the app for anyone who wants to generate images at scale.

But what ChatGPT lacks in bulk output, it makes up for in flexibility. You can generate images via the OpenAI API or with automation tools like Zapier, perhaps sending text from a Jotform submission to a ChatGPT prompt automatically. If you’re looking for an image generator that fits into a larger system or content pipeline, this one is worth a closer look.

Plans/Pricing: OpenAI doesn’t provide detailed breakdowns of the limits on image generation via ChatGPT. There is a Free plan with “limited access to image generation,” a Plus plan ($20 per month) with “extended limits on image generation,” and a Pro plan ($200 per month) that doesn’t mention image generation at all.

G2 rating: 4.7/5

7. Midjourney: The best AI image generator for stylish images

By Midjourney, Inc.

Pros:

• Every image is striking
• Helpful personalization tool

Cons:

• Not the best prompt adherence
• Editor can be clunky and difficult to use

It used to be extremely hard to track down stock images that weren’t cliché. Every option felt like someone pointing at a nondescript computer screen or whiteboard or maybe an uncomfortably tidy office desk with a journal open to a blank page. The scenes and characters were immediately recognizable for their blandness. Midjourney is the antithesis of those trite visuals.

If you want to build a website, brochure, or email campaign with images that get people to stop and pay attention, it rarely takes more than a prompt or two in Midjourney. And with commercial usage rights on all plans, you can likely generate all the company assets you need on the cheapest plan.

One of our favorite things to do when testing Midjourney was to see what it would generate from two- and three-word prompts related to emotions and concepts. Midjourney seldom feels too polished, symmetrical, or staged, which makes it perfect for banner images and cover photos. At its heart, it’s an AI art generator.If you want to become a Midjourney power user, experiment with earlier models in your prompt window. Each iteration tends to have its own particular strengths and weaknesses, meaning that older models will stay relevant over time.

Sometimes it’s hard to get exactly what you asked for — but in this case, that’s actually by design. Midjourney is a proprietary model that prioritizes variety and weirdness over adherence. There are a few ways to address that in the relatively new web interface, although you can continue generating in the older Discord portal, if you prefer. Turning down the Weirdness, Stylization, and Variety sliders will result in tamer outputs. Alternatively, you can click on  Personalize and vote on a nearly infinite number of one-on-one image matchups to help Midjourney understand which styles you prefer. 

Alongside every generated image are buttons for upscaling, remixing, outpainting, and animating, all of which delivered on their promises during our tests. The editor, though, feels a bit clunky and hard to use. You have to manually upload images (meaning you can’t select from your generation history), and the limited tools — Retexture, Smart select, Erase, and Restore — never quite delivered what we expected. Other than that, Midjourney is consistently one of the most fun image generators to use.

Plans/Pricing: Free trials tend to come and go, based on how popular the app is at any given point, so you might get lucky there.

• Basic plan ($10 per month) includes 3 hours and 20 minutes of fast generations and no slow generation allowance
• Standard plan ($30 per month) includes 15 hours of fast generations and unlimited slow generations
• Pro plan ($60 per month) includes 30 hours of fast generations and unlimited slow generations for both images and animations
• Mega plan ($120 per month) includes everything in Pro but with 60 hours of fast generations

G2 rating: 4.4/5

8. Reve: The best AI image generator for prompts with lots of details

By Reve AI, Inc. 

Pros:

• Impressive prompt adherence
• Lots of free generations

Cons:

• Zero editing tools
• No guardrails for assisting with styles

One of our test prompts involved a young princess pointing at 10 items of jewelry in a glass case. Only one image generator included the correct number of pieces: Reve. If you tend to write detailed, specific prompts, telling AI exactly what type of plant you want on the desk or whether the red book should be above or below the blue one, Reve is your best option.

Reve’s prompting window is among the simplest of any apps on this list, and the only way to alter a generated image is by selecting it and writing an updated prompt. But we went as far as creating Reve-specific tests with three full paragraphs of staging details and were surprised to see nearly all of them included.

Interestingly, Reve is one of the few apps on our list working off its own in-house AI model. The generations are fast and look great, regardless of how detailed your prompts are.

Plans/Pricing: There are no plans or tiers with Reve. It’s a simple pay-as-you-go system where each generation costs one credit, priced at $0.01 per credit with a minimum of $5 at a time. Your account gets topped up to 20 credits each day that it falls below that threshold.

G2 rating: Not available

9. Leonardo.Ai: The best AI image generator for private generation and commercial rights

By Leonardo Interactive Pty Ltd®

Pros:

• Private and commercial rights on the lowest-paid tier
• Excellent Phoenix model

Cons:

• Realtime features can feel more like a distraction than a help
• Image-to-image workflow is confusing and hard to find

Leonardo.Ai is easily one of the best all-around AI image generators. It has plenty of models to choose from, lots of granular prompt settings, robust image editing, and a handful of novel features. And it’s those features — combined with one of the most affordable plans for privacy options and commercial rights — that make it the best pick for freelance creators.

Leonardo offers multiple Realtime generation tools, including one where images update as you type out a text prompt and another that lets you draw on a canvas, creating images with each new stroke. There’s even one that sets all of the style, lighting, color, and composition settings to random and generates a feed of images that you can endlessly scroll through. They’re fun but not always very useful.

While Leonardo also includes access to Flux models, its proprietary Phoenix model is fast. During our tests, it adhered to prompts well, looked great, and required only half as many Fast Tokens as Flux. It does have options for generating an image based on a reference image, but they’re not as intuitive as other apps. You’re better off training a custom model for your specific style, object, or character, all of which is possible on any paid plan.

Overall, Leonardo is one of the best general-purpose AI image generators we tested.

Plans/Pricing:

• Free plan includes 150 daily Fast Tokens for basic generations
• Apprentice plan ($12 per month) includes 8,500 Fast Tokens, private generations, and 10 custom models
• Artisan Unlimited plan ($30 per month) includes 25,000 Fast Tokens, unlimited image generations at a relaxed pace, and 20 custom modelsMaestro Unlimited plan ($60 per month) includes 60,000 Fast Tokens, unlimited image and video generations at a relaxed pace, and 50 custom models
• Leonardo for Teams requires a sales call for shared Fast Tokens and workspaces

G2 rating: 4.5/5

10. Civitai: The best AI image generator for fine-tuned models

By Civitai, Inc. 

Pros:

• Unbelievable amount of custom models
• Massive and active community
• Best UX for model training

Cons:

• Lots of subpar models mixed in with the good ones
• Overwhelming prompt settings

Civitai feels like an app that you’ll either love or hate. Its interface is stuffed to the brim with settings, models, and customization options. It can be overwhelming, even for someone who has spent a solid week testing and getting familiar with the intricacies of AI image generators. Just picking a model can feel difficult, as there are thousands of user-generated checkpoints and fine-tuned options.

The Civitai platform is heavily focused on character generation, with generators built for specific ethnicities, poses, and styles. No other app comes close to what Civitai offers here. You can search for models using the search bar at the top of the screen. Or you can go to the homepage, scroll through the feed of trending generations, click on anything that catches your eye, and see what model and settings were used to create it.

For those who are especially brave, Civitai is arguably the best place to train your own model. It’s not something you should try if you’re still new to AI image generation, but it is a more refined process than any other app we tested can provide. And because it is so immensely popular, there are more than enough online guides and walk-throughs to help you.

Plans/Pricing:

• Free plan is ad-supported and awards Buzz (image generation credits) for a variety of participatory actions
• Bronze plan ($10 per month) includes 10,000 Buzz, no ads, and 8 images per generation
• Silver plan ($25 per month) includes 25,000 Buzz, 10 images per generation, and premium support
• Gold plan ($50 per month) for 50,000 Buzz, 12 images per generation, and enhanced model creation controls

G2 rating: Not available

Using AI to make your work stand out

Text-to-image AI generators are no longer novelties. Even the worst performing tools among those we tested were light-years ahead of DALL-E’s first release. Now we have a diverse ecosystem of highly specialized AI tools that can help with everything from product mock-ups to stock images.

By next year, the best AI models will almost certainly be significantly ahead of where they are today, regardless of whether that’s powered by the proliferation of AI agents, new training methods, or simply more computing power. But that’s no reason to sit around and wait. The teams and individuals who integrate AI into their workflows now — sooner rather than later — will be better poised to reap the benefits of wherever AI goes next.