The best AI image generators of 2024: Tested and reviewed

Google was an underdog in the image generator space, releasing its own AI generator, ImageFX, months after its competitors. The wait was worth it. ImageFX’s Imagen 3 can produce high-quality, realistic outputs, even of objects that are difficult to render, such as hands.

ImageFX is a standalone experience, and it’s easy to use. All you have to do is sign in to your Google account, type in a prompt, and let it do the magic for you. You can also take advantage of cool features such as “expressive chips,” which allow you to swap out elements of your prompts for more generations. 

Also: How to use ImageFX, Google’s AI image generator

Google also updated its AI chatbot Gemini to let you generate photos. The AI chatbot is supposed to be using Imagen 3, but when I checked, it was still using Imagen 2. 

Like when you’re using ChatGPT and Copilot, you can access the text-to-image model while chatting with Gemini. It’s useful to not have to context switch between platforms for your text and image generation needs. Unlike DALL-E, Imagen generates four images simultaneously, helping you get the most out of a single prompt.

If you are a Google user, you will probably prefer Gemini’s user interface because it has the same look and feel as Google Search. This isn’t just surface-level. Gemini double-checks the validity of its responses against Google Search and offers links that take you to the search engine.

Imagen 3 in ImageFX: Powered by: Imagen 3 | Access via: Website | Output: Four images per prompt | Price: free 

I often play around with AI image generators because they make it fun and easy to create digital artwork. Despite my experiences with different AI generators, nothing could have prepared me for Midjourney.

The output of the images was so crystal clear that I had a hard time believing they weren’t photos that someone had taken. This software is so good that it has produced award-winning art.

When it first launched, Midjourney’s biggest flaw was that it wasn’t very user-friendly. Since then, however, Midjourney has greatly simplified the process, launching a standalone webpage that makes it easy to get started. For step-by-step instructions, check out ZDNET’s guide here: How to use Midjourney to generate amazing images and art.

The biggest problem with Midjourney is that you must subscribe for $10 per month. Although the rendition of the hummingbird may not seem particularly noteworthy, Midjourney consistently produces high-quality images of everything from objects to people to scenery, which may make the cost worth it to daily users.

Midjourney features: Powered by: Midjourney | Access via: Standalone site or Discord | Output: Four images per prompt | Price: Starts at $10/month

Adobe has been a leader in developing tools for creative and working professionals for decades. As a result, it’s not surprising that its image generator is impressive. 

Accessing the generator is easy: just visit the website and type a prompt for the image you’d like generated. As you can see above, the rendered image of the hummingbird has impressive detail and is so high-quality it looks like a photo.

Also: This new AI tool from Adobe makes generating the images you need even simpler

This chatbot’s biggest standout features are Structure Reference and Style Reference. Structure Reference lets you input an image you want the AI model to use as a template. The model then uses this structure to create a new image with the same layout and composition. Style Reference uses an image as a reference to generate a new image in the same style.

These features are useful if you have an image you’d like the new, generated image to resemble, such as a quick sketch you drew or a business logo or style you’d like to keep consistent. When creating a new image, you can also tweak the “strength” of the structure reference (how much the model adheres to the reference’s image structure), allowing you to rely on your reference as lightly or heavily as you need.

Another perk is that Adobe Firefly was trained on Adobe Stock images, openly licensed content, and public domain content, making all the generated images safe for commercial use. 

Adobe Firefly features: Powered by: Firefly Image 2 or Firefly Image 3 | Access via: Website | Output: Four images per prompt | Price: Free 

Microsoft Designer’s Image Creator is powered by DALL-E 3, OpenAI’s most advanced image-generating model. It produces the same quality results as DALL-E, but it’s free, helping you circumvent the $20-per-month ChatGPT Plus subscription to use DALL-E 3 as much as you’d like. 

To access the image generator, visit the Image Creator website and sign in with a Microsoft account, or create one for free if you don’t have one.

Another major perk about this AI generator is that you can access it in the same place you access Microsoft’s AI chatbot, Copilot (formerly Bing Chat).

This means that in addition to visiting Image Creator on its standalone site, you can ask it to generate images for you in Copilot. To render an image, all you have to do is conversationally ask Copilot to draw you any image you’d like.

Also: How to use Image Creator from Microsoft Designer (formerly Bing Image Creator)

This is convenient: you can satisfy all your image-generating and AI-chatting needs in the same place for free. This facilitates tasks that could benefit from image and text generation, such as party planning, as you can ask the chatbot to generate themes for your party and then create images that follow the theme.

To do this, visit Copilot’s website and log in to access image generation. Note that if you use a school or work account, there may be some limitations that won’t let you generate images, so use a personal account.

Image Creator from Microsoft Designer features: Powered by: DALL-E 3 | Access via: Copilot, browser, and mobile | Output: Four images per prompt | Price: Free 

OpenAI, the AI company behind ChatGPT, launched DALL-E 2 in November 2022. The tool quickly became the most popular AI image generator on the market. After launching its most advanced image generator, DALL-E 3, OpenAI discontinued DALL-E 2.

DALL-E 3 is even more capable than the original model, but this comes at a cost. To access DALL-E 3 with no limits, you must be a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, and the membership costs $20 per month. Once subscribed, you can access DALL-E 3 via ChatGPT on the web or the ChatGPT app.

If you are a free user, you can access DALL-E 3 in ChatGPT with a limit of two generations per day, significantly less than other generators on the market. 

Also: How to subscribe to ChatGPT Plus (and 5 reasons why you should)

Using DALL-E 3 in ChatGPT is intuitive. Type in whatever prompt you’d like, specifying as much detail as necessary to bring your vision to life, and DALL-E 3 will generate an image that matches your prompt. 

The image on the left is the original rendition, and the one on the right is where I prompted it to be “more realistic.” Even on the right, it is not as realistic as other models, such as Google’s ImageFX or Midjourney.

As you can see in the image at the top of the article, the renditions are the same quality as Microsoft Image Generator because they both use DALL-E 3. Microsoft’s tool is free, however, giving it the clear advantage.

Like with Copilot, you can chat and render your images on the same platform, which is convenient for projects that depend on image and text generation. 

DALL-E 3 features: Powered by: DALL-E 3 by OpenAI | Access via: ChatGPT website and app | Output: One image per prompt | Price: Limited access for free or a ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month

As seen in the different examples above, many AI image generators can produce incredibly realistic-looking images and, as a result, risk spreading misinformation. As a result, most mainstream image generators have implemented guardrails that prevent users from creating images that replicate public figures or trademarked characters. Leonardo.AI, however, is much more lenient.

Also: OpenAI expands o1 model availability. See who gets access and how much

When I rendered the hummingbird image, the result was comparable with that of DALL-E 3. It didn’t really stand out amongst the other options, hence why I didn’t include that image. 

Leonardo.AI’s competitive edge is that you can generate images of characters. We don’t recommend that you use an AI image generator to create harmful images of public figures, but there are some benign use cases.

For example, if your friend or kid is a big Disney fan, you can ask the image generator to create a realistic image of Mickey Mouse in a specific environment. The prompt’s results are below: “Mickey Mouse on a plane, smiling.”

Leonardo.AI features: Powered by: Leonardo’s suite of fine-tuned AI models | Access via: website | Output: One to four images per prompt | Price: Free daily allocated tokens, but you must subscribe for more

Despite originally being named DALL-E mini, this AI image generator is not affiliated with OpenAI or DALL-E. Rather, it is an open-source alternative. Nevertheless, the name somewhat fits as the tool does everything DALL-E does, but with less precise renditions.

Also: How to use Craiyon AI (formerly known as DALL-E mini)

Unlike DALL-E, the outputs from Craiyon aren’t as high quality and take longer to render — approximately a minute, which, all things considered, is still pretty quick. A banner at the top of the page also lets you know whether you should expect delays due to high traffic. 

A major plus is that you can continue to tweak the prompt until you get exactly what you envisioned. You can also include “negative words,” which help you describe what you don’t want to see, ensuring you get the best result. The tool also generates nine images, more than any other chatbot listed, albeit at a lower quality.

Craiyon features: Powered by: Craiyon’s AI model | Access via: Craiyon website | Output: nine images per prompt | Price: Free, unlimited prompts

Stability AI created the massively popular, open-source, text-to-image generator, Stable Diffusion. Users can download the tool and use it for free, but it may require some technical skill.

Also: How to use Stable Diffusion AI to create amazing images

To make the technology more accessible to everyone (regardless of skill level), Stability AI created DreamStudio, which incorporates Stable Diffusion in a UI that is easy to understand and use. 

One of the platform’s standout features is that it includes many different entries for customization, including a “negative prompt” where you can delineate the specifics of what you’d like to avoid in the final image. You can also easily change the image ratio — that’s a key feature, as most AI image generators automatically deliver 1:1 images.

To access it, you need to create a Stabillity.ai account, or sign in with your existing Google or Discord accounts.

DreamStudio features: Powered by: SDXL 1.0 by Stability AI | Access via: Website | Output: One image per two credits | Price: $1 per 100 credits | Credits: 25 free credits when you open an account; buy more once you run out

This app took the first-place spot for the best overall app in Google Play’s 2022 awards, and it has 4.8 stars on Apple’s App Store with 142.9K ratings. Dream lets you create art and images with the simple input of a quick prompt.

An added plus is that this AI image generator lets you pick different design styles, such as realistic, expressionist, comic, abstract, fanatical, ink, and more. This helps take the guesswork out of crafting the perfect prompt to get your desired output.

Also: How to use Dream by WOMBO to generate artwork in any style

In addition to the app, the tool has a free desktop mobile version that is simple to use. If you want to take your use of the app to the next level, you can pay $90 per year or $10 per month.

Dream by WOMBO features: Powered by: Wombo’s machine-learning algorithm | Access via: Mobile and desktop versions | Output: One image with a free version, four with a paid plan | Price: Free limited access

One of the biggest issues with AI image generators is that they typically train their generators on content scraped from the internet, which means the generators use aspects of creators’ art without compensation. This approach also puts businesses that use generators at risk of copyright infringement.

Generative AI by Getty Images tackles that issue by generating images with content solely from Getty Images’ vast creative library, with full indemnification for commercial use. The generated images have Getty Images’ standard royalty-free license, assuring you that the content is fair to use without fearing legal repercussions.

Another pro is that contributors whose content was used to train the models are supposed to be compensated for their inclusion in the training set. This is a great solution for businesses that want stock photos that match their creative vision but do not want to deal with copyright-related issues. 

Generative AI by Getty Images features: Powered by: Nvidia Picasso | Access via: Website | Output: Four images per prompt | Price: Paid (price undisclosed, have to contact the team)