Kai's tool library
Curated, opinionated, tiered. S-tier is what I'd tell a friend to use. A-tier is worth your time. B-tier works but probably isn't the best option.
Image · 7
Midjourney
SThe aesthetic gold standard for AI image generation.
$10-$120/mo
Ideogram
SThe one that actually gets text in images right.
Free + $8/mo + $20/mo + $60/mo
Flux (Black Forest Labs)
AOpen weights + strong photorealism. The open-source answer.
API + open weights (Schnell is Apache 2.0)
DALL-E 3
BOpenAI's image model. Built into ChatGPT Plus.
Included with ChatGPT Plus $20/mo
Recraft
SVector + raster AI for designers. Actually controls the output.
Free + $12-$48/mo
Leonardo.ai
AGamer + creator image gen with model fine-tuning built in.
Free + $12-$60/mo
Adobe Firefly
ACommercially safe image gen, deeply integrated with Photoshop.
Free + included with Creative Cloud