Stable Diffusion
Stability AI's open-weight text-to-image model family you can self-host or call via API
Freemium
About Stable Diffusion
Stable Diffusion is Stability AI's open-weight text-to-image model line. The current generation, Stable Diffusion 3.5, ships as Large (8.1B params), Large Turbo (4-step), and Medium (2.5B) variants you can download from Hugging Face and run locally through ComfyUI, AUTOMATIC1111, or the Diffusers library. You can also call it through the Stability AI Platform API instead of self-hosting. Weights are free for non-commercial use and for businesses under $1M annual revenue under the Stability AI Community License.
Key Features
- Open weights downloadable from Hugging Face
- SD 3.5 Large, Large Turbo, and Medium variants
- Self-host locally via ComfyUI, AUTOMATIC1111, or Diffusers
- Stability AI Platform API for hosted generation
- Large ecosystem of LoRAs, ControlNets, and fine-tunes
- Inpainting, outpainting, upscaling, and img2img workflows
Pros & Cons
What we like
- Open weights you fully control and can run offline
- No per-image cost once self-hosted on your own GPU
- Huge community of models, extensions, and tutorials
- Free commercial use under $1M revenue, you own the outputs
Room for improvement
- Local setup and GPU tuning have a real learning curve
- Best variants want a strong GPU with 10GB+ VRAM
- No longer the top open model for raw image quality
- Over $1M revenue requires a paid enterprise license
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Stable Diffusion?
Stable Diffusion is an open-weight text-to-image model family from Stability AI. Because the model weights are publicly downloadable, you can run it on your own GPU, fine-tune it, build LoRAs, and ship custom variants without paying a per-image license, which is why it anchors a huge open-source ecosystem.
Is Stable Diffusion free?
The weights are free to download and run locally, so self-hosting costs only your hardware or cloud GPU time. Stability also offers a hosted API where generations run roughly 4 to 7 cents each (as of 2026), with small trial credits for new accounts and free use for creators under 1 million dollars in revenue.
What is Stable Diffusion best for?
It is best for builders and power users who want full control. Local generation, custom fine-tunes, ControlNet, inpainting, and an enormous library of community LoRAs make it the go-to for private workflows, batch generation, and apps that need image gen baked in without ongoing per-image fees.
What hardware do you need to run Stable Diffusion locally?
For the older SDXL line a GPU with about 8 to 12 GB of VRAM is comfortable. Newer SD3.5 models want more, ideally 12 GB or higher for the large variants. You can also run it on rented cloud GPUs if your machine is underpowered, paying only for the time used.
Best For
Generating art and concept imagery from text promptsBuilding custom image pipelines and product integrationsTraining LoRAs and fine-tunes on a specific styleEditing photos with inpainting, outpainting, and upscaling
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