FLUX is a family of image generation and editing models from Black Forest Labs, a German company founded by some of the original Stable Diffusion researchers. It quickly became one of the most widely used image models, both for its quality and prompt accuracy and because some versions are released with open weights. The main difference from Midjourney is that FLUX is more of a "model" than an "app": you use it inside dozens of other tools, from Photoshop to Krea and Leonardo, or on your own computer.

What is FLUX good for?#

  • Realistic photos: An online shop can create banners or product ad scenes with natural-looking light and believable detail.
  • Text-instruction image editing: With the editing versions, you change a shirt color, add an object or shift the style of a photo without wrecking the rest of the image.
  • Private, quota-free generation: A designer or studio runs the open model on its own GPU and generates as many images as it wants, with no internet connection or subscription.
  • Training a custom style or character: By training small custom models, a brand style or a consistent character face stays stable across images.
  • Building products as a developer: Programmers use the API to generate images automatically inside an app or store.

Strengths and weaknesses#

Strengths:

  • High quality and precise handling of long prompts
  • Open-weight versions for local use and customization
  • Image editing that preserves detail and character consistency
  • Available inside many other tools

Weaknesses:

  • Licenses for the open versions are not uniform, and some restrict commercial work
  • The large versions need a powerful graphics card with plenty of memory
  • Running it locally is complicated for beginners
  • Weaker support for prompts and in-image text in languages other than English

Free version and pricing#

Treat FLUX as freemium. The open-weight versions are free to download, and your only cost is hardware and electricity. Before any commercial use, though, read the license of that specific version. The strongest models are available through a paid per-image API, the official site's playground, or subscriptions to other tools that offer FLUX. Check the official site for current prices.

Language support#

FLUX works best with descriptive English prompts. Prompts in other languages are understood less reliably, and text in non-Latin scripts inside the image often comes out wrong, so it is better to add such text later in a design tool.

Getting started in three steps#

  1. First try an official version inside one of the tools that offer FLUX to see the quality.
  2. To run it locally, install ComfyUI and download a version that fits your graphics card's memory.
  3. Check the license of that exact version before any commercial use.

FLUX alternatives#

  • Stable Diffusion: the older open-source ecosystem, with lighter hardware needs.
  • Midjourney: high artistic quality with no technical setup, but closed and paid.
  • Nano Banana: photo editing in plain language inside Gemini.
  • Krea: offers FLUX and other models in one simple interface.

To run models on your own machine, read running AI on a personal computer, and for better prompts, making images with AI: prompts, styles and text. For licensing, copyright and commercial use of AI images is useful too.