The Best AI Image Generation in 2024

1 prompt - 14 images compared

Lili Marocsik

April 29th, 2024

Written by

Last updated

If we only judged by the design itself, for us it would be an easy choice. Dreamstudio not just followed the prompt, but also created such a beautiful design, that we’re slightly in love. Many tools created two robot women or added a slight sexual touch (maybe that’s how AI interprets friendly at this point. I hope it will learn fast).

But let’s take a look at all other factors as well and give you what you deserve: an in-depth and ruthless comparison of all image generators with free tokens in 2024.

Plus, let’s kill our darlings like Dall E 2 or DeepAI.

The Best AI Image Generators with easy access and free trials:

Is this your first try generating AI images? Then I can recommend to start out with these tools because the sign up process is simple and they have generous free trials.

  • Canva - 50 free tokens, 1 token for 4 pictures

  • Dreamstudio - 25 free credits, 0.91 for 4 regular images

  • Leonardo.AI - 150 free tokens, 2 tokens for 1 picture

  • Pixlr - 20 free credits

  • Hotpot - 20 free images

Completely free AI image generator tools:

These tools are free, but we don’t recommend them due to low image quality.

  • DeepAI

  • Craiyon

Spoiler Alert

We reviewed the best AI image generators and damn, did they become great! We focused on tools with free credits, therefore generosity was a factor we added specifically for this comparison.

Otherwise, we looked for good designs, ease of use for the tool and the onboarding. We tested the main players like Midjourney, Dreamstudio and Leonardo and despite being a paid product, we smuggled Dall E in there too, just for the sake of a good comparison.

Expect a big surprise at the end of this all… first place took a tool we absolutely did not expect to reign the AI image generators of 2024.

To have a clear comparison, we used the same prompt for each tool.

The prompt we used was:

Create an image of 2 people looking at each other, one being an AI robot, the other a woman. The background is space and the mood is friendly.

Indepth AI Image Generator Comparison

Canva Generated image - 1 prompt, 11 images

1

IMAGE QUALITY:

4

USER EXPERIENCE

5

SETUP

5

GENEROSITY

5

Overall score:

4.75

Prompt

Create an image of 2 people looking at each other, one being an AI robot, the other a woman. The background is space and the mood is friendly.

Support

Help Center

Key Features

  • Video Background Remover
  • Thousands of free templates
  • Print designs
  • Stunning Charts
  • Share in a click
  • Millions of free assets
  • Drag-and-drop editor
  • Edit existing files
  • Professional Styles

Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Beautiful designs
  • Automatically provides 4 variations
  • Added different ethnicities (no racial bias)
  • Wide range of other features
  • Picture in high-resolution

Cons:

  • Added a comic look without being prompted to

Price Point

Pro
11,99€
Free Trial
50 free tokens, 1 for 4 pictures

Conclusion

Surprise, surprise! Did you ever hear of Canva in connection to the best AI image generators? We sure didn’t! Canva offers amazing other features, I use their background remover daily and it makes creating great designs so easy. The designs are great, the free offer is very generous and the only thing we can complain about is that it added a comic style without being prompted. But the result is still amazing.

2

IMAGE QUALITY:

5

USER EXPERIENCE

4

SETUP

4

GENEROSITY

4

Overall score:

4.75

Prompt

Create an image of 2 people looking at each other, one being an AI robot, the other a woman. The background is space and the mood is friendly.

Support

FAQ, Community, chat, email, or phone

Key Features

  • Generative Audio and Video
  • Generative Expand
  • Generative Fill
  • Vector Generation
  • Generate own templates
  • Text To Image
  • Camera Angles
  • Adjust style intensity
  • Social Media Templates

Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • unique features like camera angle
  • Automatically provides 4 variations
  • only tool that added an older lady (unbiased)
  • toggle for visual intensity of styles
  • one click social media repurposing

Cons:

  • ?

Price Point

Adobe Firefly
5,67€
Free Trial
25 Credits, 1 per 4 image

Conclusion

You really notice how Adobe and with understands the situation well: they just simply have to offer more than just image generation, because so many other tools can do that too. So cleverly they add special features like camera angle or suggestions for templates to add the image to to upload it on instagram. Well done Adobe, I'm glad you are not the next Kodak ;)

3

IMAGE QUALITY:

5

USER EXPERIENCE

5

SETUP

4

GENEROSITY

4

Overall score:

4.5

Prompt

Create an image of 2 people looking at each other, one being an AI robot, the other a woman. The background is space and the mood is friendly.

Support

Contact page

Key Features

  • Multi-generations
  • Styles
  • Canvas
  • Upscaling
  • Masking
  • Layers
  • New models
  • History

Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • The most beautiful design
  • Only 0.91 credit for 4 images
  • Image provided in high resolution (1.5MB)
  • Provided 4 versions in a variety of styles
  • Prompt followed perfectly (except for the space background)

Cons:

  • Signup takes a detour

Price Point

Free Trial
25 free credits (0.91 for 4 regular images)

Conclusion

Dreamstudio was a bit more complicated for the signup process, but really worth it. The beautiful designs come quite cheap, only 0.91 tokens of 25 were deducted for 4 pictures in high resolution. That's a generous trial offer and I like that it provided different styles in the output. Also: no racial bias, as one of the women has a non-white background.

Midjourney Generated image - 1 prompt, 11 images

*New feature: Character Consistency*

The character consistency feature of MidJourney ensures that characters in a series of generated images (for example a person or animal) stays consistent and looks the same across different scenes or iterations.

4

IMAGE QUALITY:

5

USER EXPERIENCE

3

SETUP

5

GENEROSITY

5

Overall score:

4.5

Prompt

Create an image of 2 people looking at each other, one being an AI robot, the other a woman. The background is space and the mood is friendly.

Support

Email Support

Key Features

  • Character Consistency
  • Instant Setup
  • Unlimited Generations
  • Multi-Account Management
  • Image Queueing
  • Real-Time Updates

Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Good image quality
  • Easy onboarding
  • Picture in high-resolution downloadable

Cons:

  • Request was queued (waiting time displayed)
  • Long loading times
  • Watermark on generated image

Price Point

Free Trial
10 credits, image available for 7 days

Conclusion

Midjourney is uncomplicated and the design is nice. Again, another victim to the fierce competition and the fact that there are just better players out there. A solid tool.

Pro Tip:

Ask ChatGPT for a unique generation ID if you want to generate another image with a similar style but different prompt.

5

IMAGE QUALITY:

5

USER EXPERIENCE

5

SETUP

5

GENEROSITY

2

Overall score:

4.25

Prompt

Create an image of 2 people looking at each other, one being an AI robot, the other a woman. The background is space and the mood is friendly.

Support

Help Center, Community Forum, Support Tickets, Email Support, Documentation

Key Features

  • Text-to-Image Capabilities
  • Advanced Image Generation
  • Image-to-Image Transformations
  • Style and Concept Blending
  • Editable Image Attributes
  • High-Resolution Outputs
  • Image Editing

Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Good image quality
  • Understands prompts quite well
  • Can provide style codes
  • Editing images feature

Cons:

  • Struggles with changing perspectives
  • No possibility to test the tool for free

Price Point

Plus
$20/month
Free Trial
not available

Conclusion

I really like the image generator of OpenAI, but I'm not sure this is the tool I would choose, if it wasn't available in the my ChatGPT plus plan anyways. I'm sometimes annoyed that it doesn't get perspectives right. But my favorite activity is generating pictures with Dall E 3 and giving them to Runway to make them move / turn into a 4 second video.

6

IMAGE QUALITY:

4

USER EXPERIENCE

4

SETUP

5

GENEROSITY

5

Overall score:

4.25

Prompt

Create an image of 2 people looking at each other, one being an AI robot, the other a woman. The background is space and the mood is friendly.

Support

Chatbot and Email support

Key Features

  • AI Art Generator
  • AI Headshot Generator
  • AI Profile Picture Editor
  • AI Game Tools
  • AI Object Remover
  • AI Sparkwriter
  • AI Picture Colorizer
  • AI Background Remover
  • AI Picture Restorer
  • AI Photo Upscaler
  • AI Art Personalizer
  • AI File Translator
  • AI Color Generator
  • Icon Resizer
  • Free Icons

Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Very nice design
  • Helpful display of styles
  • No sign-up required

Cons:

  • Resolution of free image low (320 KB)

Price Point

Free Trial
20 free images

Conclusion

When I opened Hotpot.AI, I first thought that it would belong to the Crayion/DeepAI family: dull dashboard = dull tool. But look at what a nice AI image it generated! Ok, they are two cyborgs and not a robot and a woman, but I like that the lady looks mature and compared to others more natural. Hotpot.AI is like the Swiss Army Knife of AI image generators, look at all the features we found on the page (which by the way, doesn’t require a sign-up).

7

IMAGE QUALITY:

4

USER EXPERIENCE

5

SETUP

4

GENEROSITY

4

Overall score:

4.25

Prompt

Create an image of 2 people looking at each other, one being an AI robot, the other a woman. The background is space and the mood is friendly.

Support

Freepik Support

Key Features

  • Daily downloads
  • Daily AI text-to-image generation
  • AI Art generator with Pikaso
  • Online Editor
  • Vectors
  • Photos
  • AI images
  • Icons
  • Videos

Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Nice designs
  • Huge variety of complementary features

Cons:

  • Caught in a signup loop at first (worked eventually)

Price Point

Free Trial
20 free credits

Conclusion

Freepik jumped so fast onto the results that I was suspicious. And really, accidentally I tried the photo search instead of the AI image generator (the former works without a signup). I like the tool and its variety, the ladies in the image look a bit puppet-ish, but almost too beautiful to be real.

8

IMAGE QUALITY:

4

USER EXPERIENCE

5

SETUP

4

GENEROSITY

4

Overall score:

4.25

Prompt

Create an image of 2 people looking at each other, one being an AI robot, the other a woman. The background is space and the mood is friendly.

Support

Email Support

Key Features

  • Unlimited Saves
  • Monthly free AI Credits
  • Private mode for AI Generations
  • Library of fonts
  • Templates
  • Elements
  • Animations

Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Beautiful designs
  • Automatically provides 4 variations
  • Added different ethnicities (no racial bias)
  • Wide range of other features
  • Picture in high-resolution

Cons:

  • Prompt not followed (showing 2 robots)

Price Point

Free Trial
20 free credits

Conclusion

Pixlr offers 20 free credits/images per month which is a delightful surprise due to the high quality of the generated image. And ranking only due to the wide range of competitors in the middle field. It didn't quite follow my instructions, but it disobeyed in a very stylish way.

9

IMAGE QUALITY:

3

USER EXPERIENCE

4

SETUP

4

GENEROSITY

5

Overall score:

4

Prompt

Create an image of 2 people looking at each other, one being an AI robot, the other a woman. The background is space and the mood is friendly.

Support

Contact Page and Help Center

Key Features

  • Create striking game resources
  • Custom data sets
  • Training custom models

Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Many features
  • Generous free offer

Cons:

  • Designs a bit tacky
  • Created images are automatically public in a free account
  • Feature variety is a bit confusing
  • Individuals almost kissing

Price Point

Free Trial
150 free tokens (1 picture is 2 tokens)

Conclusion

Leonardo felt a bit overwhelming feature-wise, but offers generous 150 free tokens. Interesting to see that the two individuals from my picture were even more sexualized and almost kissing when I took out the 'Leonardo' feature. Still not sure what to conclude here.

10

Setup/Onboarding

3

User Experience

3

Tool Performance

3

GENEROSITY

5

Overall score:

3.5

Prompt

Create an image of 2 people looking at each other, one being an AI robot, the other a woman. The background is space and the mood is friendly.

Support

FAQ

Key Features

  • Sketch to Image
  • AI Portrait Maker
  • AI Clothes Changer
  • Image Upscaler
  • Edit Anything
  • Magic Eraser
  • Background Remover
  • Image to Image
  • Text to Image

Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Wide range of styles
  • Have a prompt data base

Cons:

  • -long loading times (even for just signing up)
  • -settings not reacting (tried to change language)
  • -picture only available for 7 days
  • -completely missed the prompt and generated 2 cyborgs

Price Point

Pro
$7
Max
$14
Free Trial
10 credits daily, 1 per image

Conclusion

For being such a famous tool, the performance was so so. But I have to admit, it's mostly famous for it's video generation capabilities. I've accessed the tool via https://stablediffusionweb.com/

11

IMAGE QUALITY:

2

USER EXPERIENCE

2

SETUP

5

GENEROSITY

5

Overall score:

3.5

Prompt

Create an image of 2 people looking at each other, one being an AI robot, the other a woman. The background is space and the mood is friendly.

Support

the tool itself

Key Features

  • Unlimited images
  • Without watermark

Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Screenshot feature (takes picture of all versions at once)
  • No sign up required
  • Images are private

Cons:

  • Terrible designs
  • Annoying ads
  • Long loading times

Price Point

Free Trial
Completely Free

Conclusion

Crayion reminds me a lot of DeepAI and I assume that the same people run it. Same ads, same bad designs. The cyborg lady on the left looks more paranoid than friendly, weird interpretation of the prompt here. Another tool you can absolutely ignore.

12

IMAGE QUALITY:

1

USER EXPERIENCE

3

SETUP

5

GENEROSITY

3

Overall score:

3

Prompt

Create an image of 2 people looking at each other, one being an AI robot, the other a woman. The background is space and the mood is friendly.

Support

Help Center

Key Features

  • Photo Editor
  • AI Logo Generator
  • Background Changer
  • AI Enhance
  • Remove Object
  • Batch Editor
  • Text Editor
  • Collage Maker

Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Palette of tools for further editing

Cons:

  • Didn't follow prompt, instead of robot, it added a man

Price Point

Free Trial
100 MB free storage

Conclusion

Piscart is like a simple Canva clone, a whole toolbox actually, not just an image generator. The only problem: it completely missed the mark and didn't even generate a robot but rather a couple flirting with each other. I can almost imagine its thought process: A woman needs a man. No Piscart, in 2024, we need an AI tool that can follow instructions.

If you sign up to the newsletter now

you get free access to the video course

‘Boost your productivity - AI Toolkit for SMEs and AI Beginners’

Good to know:

Dall E 2 will no longer sign up new users as of April 2024. You can use up your old credits, but no longer purchase new ones.

13

IMAGE QUALITY:

1

USER EXPERIENCE

4

SETUP

5

GENEROSITY

1

Overall score:

2.75

Prompt

Create an image of 2 people looking at each other, one being an AI robot, the other a woman. The background is space and the mood is friendly.

Support

Email Support

Key Features

  • Art and Illustration
  • Creative Exploration
  • Logo and Graphic Design
  • Educational Resources
  • Visual Storytelling
  • Concept Art

Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • ?

Cons:

  • Worst designs
  • Few options (no picture formats, no choice for styles)
  • No free version

Price Point

115 Credits
15 $
Free Trial
not available

Conclusion

No other comment than: It's hard not to laugh about the image Dall E 2 generated. Why does the cyborg have pom-poms have on her breasts. I get it, this were the first steps of a now wonderful tool. Still funny. And time to move on to Dall E's version 3!

14

IMAGE QUALITY:

1

USER EXPERIENCE

1

SETUP

4

GENEROSITY

5

Overall score:

2.75

Prompt

Create an image of 2 people looking at each other, one being an AI robot, the other a woman. The background is space and the mood is friendly.

Support

Email Support

Key Features

  • Create an image from a text prompt

Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Free Tool

Cons:

  • Design not even close to request
  • Offer various picture formats, but not 1x1
  • No simple photo-realistic style available
  • Annoying banner ads

Price Point

Free Trial
Completely Free

Conclusion

DeepAI may maybe free, but it didn’t follow my prompt at all. The result is by far the worst of all 11 tools I’ve tested and therefore an absolute waste of time. I’ve also tested it for my AI Logo Maker Review because it kept popping up during my search. But it is to the same extend incapable of creating a logo as an image. There are many better tools out there, you can ignore DeepAI, from now on I will do the same.

Continue reading:

Best (Free) AI TEXT GENERATORS - Extensive comparison with 19 (!) tools.

The best 5 AI VIDEO GENERATORS in 2024

The ultimate LLM (LARGE LANGUAGE MODEL) comparison with lots of tricks and tips!