Black Forest Labs' 32B-parameter open image model released in November 2025, with multi-reference editing and composition.
From Midjourney V7 to Nano Banana, FLUX.2 to Jimeng — our systematic review sorts the AI image landscape into three playbooks with scenario-based picks.
Black Forest Labs released FLUX.2 in November 2025 with multi-reference editing; FLUX.2-dev open weights landed on Hugging Face.
Midjourney
The benchmark AI image tool in open beta since July 2022, famed for artistic quality — V7 adds default personalization.
Ideogram
An AI image tool launched August 2023 by ex-Google Brain researchers, known for accurate in-image text rendering.
Leonardo.Ai
An AI creative platform launched in late 2022 for game assets and marketing design, acquired by Canva in 2024.
Adobe Firefly
Adobe's commercially-safe generative AI launched March 2023, trained on licensed data and deeply integrated into the Photoshop family.