Home / Directory / AI image tools
Alternatives to Midjourney, DALL-E and Adobe Firefly
Make images with AI on a computer you own, or on a network of volunteers, instead of renting it by the month.
Ranked by score out of 30, most convivial first.
ComfyUI
A node-based tool for building image, video and 3D generation workflows that run on your own machine.
AI Horde
Free image generation in your browser, powered by volunteers who lend their spare graphics cards.
Fooocus
Image generation on your own computer that works from a prompt, with very few settings to learn.
InvokeAI
A friendly image studio with a canvas, a gallery and node workflows, running on your own computer.
Draw Things
Image generation that runs entirely on your iPhone, iPad or Mac, with no connection needed.
ArtCraft
An open-source studio for composing AI images and video, with 2D and 3D controls.
For comparison
The big names these tools are measured against. We review them as benchmarks, so they sit outside the directory.
About these tools
The best known image generators are subscriptions to a service you cannot inspect. The open ones trade a bit of polish and some setup for a model you run yourself. Fooocus is the easiest to start with, ComfyUI is the most flexible, InvokeAI has the friendliest canvas, and Draw Things puts the whole thing on an iPhone or Mac, and ArtCraft composes images and video with 2D and 3D controls. AI Horde needs no install at all, because volunteers lend their spare graphics cards.
Most of these need a recent graphics card, which is the real cost, and the open models were mostly trained on images collected from the web, which artists have objected to. Our scores measure how the tool treats you, and they do not yet weigh how a model was trained, so read that part of each review for yourself.
How to choose
Start with the hardware you have. A recent Nvidia card or an Apple silicon Mac runs the local tools well, and with neither, a browser tool like AI Horde is the easy way in. Then ask how much you want to learn: Fooocus is quick but no longer growing, InvokeAI is gentler, and ComfyUI rewards the time you put in. Check what happens if the company changes course, because the licence on the code is what lets you keep going.
Frequently asked questions
Can I generate AI images for free without a subscription?
Yes. Fooocus, ComfyUI and InvokeAI are free and run on your own computer, and AI Horde generates images in your browser for free, with a wait in the queue.
Do I need a powerful computer?
For the local tools, you want a recent graphics card, though Fooocus lists a 4 GB minimum. On Apple devices Draw Things runs on the phone or Mac itself. If you have none of those, AI Horde runs on other people's machines.
Is AI image generation ethical?
That depends on the model more than the tool. Most open models were trained on images scraped from the web, and many artists object. Adobe says its own Firefly models are trained on licensed content, but it needs an account and a subscription for the full experience.