All comparisons
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.
DALL-E 3Image Generation | MidjourneyImage Generation | Stable DiffusionImage Generation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tagline | Turn words into stunning, photorealistic images | AI image generation built for aesthetics, not photorealism | Open-source AI image generation model |
| 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. |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid | Free |
| Pricing details | Free via Bing/Copilot, $20/mo via ChatGPT Plus, or API at $0.04-0.12 per image | 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 | $0 - $20/mo | $10 - $120/mo | From $0/mo |
| Category | Image Generation | Image Generation | Image Generation |
| Tags | ai-artimage-generationtext-to-imageopenaicreative-toolsdesignvisualization | ai-artimage-generationdigital-artcreative-toolsdiscordconcept-artdesign | image-generationopen-sourcetext-to-imagelocal |
| Website | Visit DALL-E 3 | Visit Midjourney | Visit Stable Diffusion |
DALL-E 3Image Generation
- Tagline
- Turn words into stunning, photorealistic images
- 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.
- Pricing
- Freemium
- Pricing details
- Free via Bing/Copilot, $20/mo via ChatGPT Plus, or API at $0.04-0.12 per image
- Price range
- $0 - $20/mo
- Category
- Image Generation
- Tags
- ai-artimage-generationtext-to-imageopenaicreative-toolsdesignvisualization
- Website
- Visit DALL-E 3
MidjourneyImage Generation
- Tagline
- AI image generation built for aesthetics, not photorealism
- 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.
- 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/mo
- Category
- Image Generation
- Tags
- ai-artimage-generationdigital-artcreative-toolsdiscordconcept-artdesign
- Website
- Visit Midjourney
Stable DiffusionImage Generation
- Tagline
- Open-source AI image generation model
- What it does
- Stable Diffusion is an open-source AI image generation model that creates high-quality images from text descriptions.
- Pricing
- Free
- Pricing details
- Free and open-source. Cloud API pricing varies
- Price range
- From $0/mo
- Category
- Image Generation
- Tags
- image-generationopen-sourcetext-to-imagelocal
- Website
- Visit Stable Diffusion
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.