DALL-E 3 vs Midjourney vs Stable Diffusion
The three names that come up in every image generation conversation. They differ more in how you use them than in what they can produce.
All 3 checked against the vendor's own pricing page · checked Sep 2026
All comparisons
Which should you pick?
Midjourney still has the strongest default aesthetic, which is why it dominates among people who want a good image without much prompt engineering. DALL-E 3 is the most obedient to a literal prompt and the easiest to reach, since it is inside ChatGPT. Stable Diffusion is the one you choose when you need control or need to run locally: it is the only one of the three you can fine-tune on your own images and run on your own hardware, and that is worth more than raw quality for most production use.
| Visit DALL-E 3 | Visit Midjourney | Visit Stable Diffusion | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it costs | |||
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid | Freemium |
| Pricing details | DALL-E 3 is reached through ChatGPT rather than sold separately. Free tier at 0 EUR. Go 5 EUR a month, Plus 23 EUR a month adding projects, scheduled tasks and custom GPTs, and Pro from 85 EUR a month. Image generation is also available through the API, billed per image. Read from Serbia, where the vendor serves local currency. Forcing a US locale, timezone and Accept-Language did not change it because the vendor geolocates by IP, so no USD figure could be confirmed and the USD price columns are left empty rather than carrying a conversion. | Paid only, no free tier. Basic $10/month, Standard $30, Pro $60, Mega $120. Annual billing is 20% less ($96, $288, $576, $1,152 per year). Extra fast GPU time is $4/hour. | Free and open-source. Cloud API pricing varies |
| Price range | Priced in another currencyChecked 2026-09-17 | $10 - $120/moChecked 2026-10-08 | Usage based, no flat monthly planChecked 2026-09-19 |
| Free option | Free tier | No free option | Free tier |
| Plans |
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| What it is | |||
| What it does | DALL-E 3 turns text prompts into detailed images and follows long prompts closely. Free via Copilot, or $20 a month through ChatGPT Plus. | Midjourney's V8 models render native 2K images in about five seconds, follow long prompts closely, and adapt to your own taste through personalization. | Stable Diffusion is an open-source AI image generation model that creates high-quality images from text descriptions. |
| The details | |||
| Tags | ai-artimage-generationtext-to-imageopenaicreative-toolsdesignvisualization | ai-artimage-generationdigital-artcreative-toolsdiscordconcept-artdesign | image-generationopen-sourcetext-to-imagelocal |
What it costs
- Pricing
- Freemium
- Pricing details
- DALL-E 3 is reached through ChatGPT rather than sold separately. Free tier at 0 EUR. Go 5 EUR a month, Plus 23 EUR a month adding projects, scheduled tasks and custom GPTs, and Pro from 85 EUR a month. Image generation is also available through the API, billed per image. Read from Serbia, where the vendor serves local currency. Forcing a US locale, timezone and Accept-Language did not change it because the vendor geolocates by IP, so no USD figure could be confirmed and the USD price columns are left empty rather than carrying a conversion.
- Price range
- Priced in another currencyChecked 2026-09-17
- Free option
- Free tier
- Plans
- FreeNot listed
- GoNot listed
- PlusNot listed
- ProNot listed
What it is
- What it does
- DALL-E 3 turns text prompts into detailed images and follows long prompts closely. Free via Copilot, or $20 a month through ChatGPT Plus.
The details
- Tags
- ai-artimage-generationtext-to-imageopenaicreative-toolsdesignvisualization
What it costs
- Pricing
- Paid
- Pricing details
- Paid only, no free tier. Basic $10/month, Standard $30, Pro $60, Mega $120. Annual billing is 20% less ($96, $288, $576, $1,152 per year). Extra fast GPU time is $4/hour.
- Price range
- $10 - $120/moChecked 2026-10-08
- Free option
- No free option
- Plans
- Basic$10/mo
- Standard$30/mo
- Pro$60/mo
- Mega$120/mo
What it is
- What it does
- Midjourney's V8 models render native 2K images in about five seconds, follow long prompts closely, and adapt to your own taste through personalization.
The details
- Tags
- ai-artimage-generationdigital-artcreative-toolsdiscordconcept-artdesign
What it costs
- Pricing
- Freemium
- Pricing details
- Free and open-source. Cloud API pricing varies
- Price range
- Usage based, no flat monthly planChecked 2026-09-19
- Free option
- Free tier
- Plans
- Community License$0/mo
- API creditsNot listed
- Enterprise LicenseContact sales
What it is
- What it does
- Stable Diffusion is an open-source AI image generation model that creates high-quality images from text descriptions.
The details
- Tags
- image-generationopen-sourcetext-to-imagelocal
Read the full reviews
What each one is actually like to use, tested by hand rather than summarised from the vendor’s own page.
