This post is heavily outdated. Check this video I made instead.
This article is supported by readers. There are affiliate links at no cost to you!
What Are We Looking at in This Guide?
Here’s a quick overview of the tools you’re going to see in this list:
| Rank | AI Art Generator | Usage |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | LimeWire AI Studio | Best AI Art Platform (Earn from your creations) |
| 2. | Nightcafe | Best for Easy Access |
| 3. | Stable Diffusion | Best for Image-to-Image Art |
| 4. | DALL-E 2 | Best for Generating Photorealistic Images |
| 5. | MidJourney | Best for High-Quality Images |
| 6. | Fotor | Best for Generating NFT Art from Images |
| 7. | Deep Dream Generator | Best for Multiple Art Styles |
| 8. | Artbreeder | Best for Improving Image Quality |
| 9. | StarryAI | Best for Generating NFTs for Free |
| 10. | RunwayML | Best for Video Editing and Animations |
Towards the top of this list, the tools are AI text-to-image generators. These represent the new era of AI art generation.
You will also find one great mobile app for generating AI art. Besides, there are some awesome AI-based image-to-image generators.
Then there are some older AI generators with APIs developers can use.
I hope you enjoy this comprehensive review and find the best tools to try.
Let’s jump into the reviews!
1. LimeWire
LimeWire has transformed into a hub for the creation, publication, and monetization of content, leveraging AI.
Through LimeWire AI Studio, individuals can easily create images (and in the near future, music and audio.)
Once created, you can publish your art on LimeWire, earning a substantial 70% of the ad revenue generated from their content.
Users have the ability to follow others and browse through a feed to explore creations from different people.
Additionally, LimeWire incorporates blockchain technology.
Key Features
- Image generator
- Multiple AI models
- Free trial
- Earn ad revenue from your creations
- Audio and video generators coming soon
My Experience
My experience with LimeWire was just awesome.
I tried the tool with a bunch of inputs and got some really nice outputs.
Only then do I realize that one can actually publish these pieces of art and earn with them.
There’s actually a 70% ad revenue share. So if your post goes viral on LimeWire, you might earn something as well—not just get those likes.
I published a couple of images myself.
Obviously, I didn’t earn anything as I just published but this is a great opportunity for sure.
The tool works fast and the outcomes are great. If I were looking for an all-rounder AI platform, this is what I’d keep an eye on, for sure!
Pricing
- Free plan: $0.00/mo
- Basic plan: $9.99/mo
- Advanced plan: $29.90/mo
- Pro plan: $49.90/mo
2. Nightcafe
Get 5% off with promo code CODINGEM.
| Rating | 4.7/5 |
| User Experience | 4.9/5 |
NightCafe is one of the most popular AI art generators on the market. The tool is said to have more algorithms and art-generation features than other AI art generators.
Similar to Jasper Art, or any other AI art generator, it’s extremely easy to use NightCafe. There is a free trial version you can use for free without sign-ups or credit card details needed. All you need to do is head over to their website and enter a text prompt based on your imagination. Then you need to wait for a max of 30 seconds and you have a piece of art in front of you.
Make sure to read my complete guide to the best AI art generators.
Similar to other AI art generators on the market, the art generated is unique and original in NightCafe.
The state-of-the-art AI algorithms are able to produce this type of digital art from scratch to best match the text input you entered it. Thus, all the art you generate with this tool is something no one has ever seen before.
NightCafe has a credit system for making digital art. The more credits you have, the more images you can generate. You can earn credits by taking part in the community. Also, it’s possible to purchase credits.
My Experience with NightCafe
Unlike Jasper, Night Cafe lets you try their solution for free. I think this is great because you can be assured of the quality before investing in the tool.
That being said, let’s try the tool with the same input: “A man walking on the moon during a thunderstorm“.
Here is the result:
I think this result looks amazing. Once again, this is something I probably couldn’t create myself and would have to hire an artist or designer to do.
Unlike Jasper, NightCafe only generates a single output. In Jasper Art, you get 4 outputs in one go.
NightCafe also gives you the option to purchase prints, share, evolve, enhance, or duplicate the pieces you generate with it. Here is a page that the tool generates for you:
Speaking of evolving the creation, let’s evolve the above photo by one generation to see what happens. I chose the style of “dark fantasy”. Here is what the result looks like:
Pretty cool, isn’t it? The tool just created a second generation of the image I earlier produced. You can do the same for free with different genres and settings. You can even tweak the advanced settings if you feel like it.
Key Features
Some of the most notable features of NightCafe include:
- Get ownership of the art you have generated.
- Multiple AI algorithms that no other tools have.
- Control for advanced usage.
- Credit earning system.
- Helpful community and social features.
- Video generation tools.
- Purchase a print version of your artwork.
Pricing
You can try NightCafe for free!
NightCafe AI art generation happens with credits. You can purchase credits in four different batches:
- AI Hobbyist: $9.99/month for 100 credits/month
- AI Enthusiast: $19.99/month for 250 credits/month
- AI Artist: $49.99/month for 700 credits/month
- AI Professional: $79.99/month for 1500 credits/month
If you use my link to purchase credits, you get a 5% discount!
3. Stable Diffusion
| Rating | 4.9/5 |
| User Experience | 4.2/5 |
Stable Diffusion uses the latest advancements in AI technology to convert text to images.
Unlike tools like Jasper Art or NightCafe, Stable Diffusion is an AI image algorithm.
Stable Diffusion is entirely free to use and it can generate images of unbelievable quality. Although because it’s a technology rather than a tool itself, you need to either find a site that offers SD for free or set it up locally yourself (tech skills required).
There are two main versions of Stable Diffusion:
- Stable Diffusion text-to-image for generating images from text.
- Stable Diffusion image-to-image for converting images to AI-based art.
Make sure to read my complete guide to the best AI art generators.
Notice: If you use the demo versions, expect it to take anywhere between 1 and 15 minutes to generate the images. This is because there is a queue and limitations of computational power for the demo versions. For instance, to produce the pictures of the four monkeys above, I had to wait for 2 minutes due to the queue.
My Experience with Stable Diffusion
Stable Diffusion is the underlying AI art model for many of the AI art tools on the market.
There are some demo versions where you can try this algorithm for free without having to possess technical knowledge.
Here is a free Stable Diffusion demo by Huggingface. I found this for free. You can try searching for “Stable Diffusion Demo” or such to find other free Stable Diffusion demos on the internet that you can experiment with for free.
To generate images with this demo, all you need to do is input a prompt to the tool.
Once again, I’ll use my “A man walking on the moon during a thunderstorm“. Let’s see what happens:
Yay! I think the results look pretty awesome (except for the first one I don’t quite understand).
By the way, one of the downsides of a free demo like this is there are other people using it at the same time. This can cause lagging and frustration. For instance, I tried the Stable Diffusion image-to-image generator demo and waited 30 minutes without results.
Key Features
- Text-to-image capabilities
- Image-to-image capabilities
- Easy to use
- There are lots of demo versions that are free to use.
- Unbelievable outputs
- Developer-friendly. You can set up your own Stable Diffusion demo with minimal hassle.
Pricing
Stable diffusion AI art generator is free to use.
Besides, if you have some technical background, you can pretty easily set up a private Stable Diffusion demo. Stable Diffusion is the model many AI image generators, such as Jasper Art or NightCafe use.
4. DALL-E 2
| Rating | 4.9/5 |
| User Experience | 4.2/5 |
DALL-E- 2 is an AI image generator with which you can generate realistic images and any kind of digital art.
DALL-E 2 is an AI image generation model developed by OpenAI that is the same company that created GPT-3 and ChatGPT—the best natural language processing models.
According to OpenAI, you can use DALL-E 2 to design products, create illustrations, and even generate new business ideas.
This image model is easy to use. Anyone can create professional-looking designs and images with it. You don’t need to possess any technical skills or artistic background to use DALL-E 2.
Make sure to read my complete guide to the best AI art generators.
One of the key features of DALL-E 2 is the paintbrush feature. With this, you can:
- Highlight a portion of an image.
- Give DALL-E 2 a text prompt to make a change to the image.
- Wait for the tool to make the changes and enjoy the resulting image.
Example
One of the popular examples of using DALL-E 2 is Mona Lisa with a Mohawk.
Here is an image generated by one of the creators of DALL-E 2:
My Experience with DALL-E
DALL-E used to be behind a waiting list but these days you can just sign up and start using it.
Similar to other AI art generators I’ve written about, DALL-E 2 takes a text input and spits out an image. Notice that the images are original and unique and not copied from anywhere.
Let’s try what happens with the prompt I used earlier: “A man walking on the moon during a thunderstorm“. Here are the results.
DALL-E generates 4 images for each prompt you provide it with.
I think there is a lot more variance in these images than in any other tool I’ve tested thus far. The bottom-right image looks like some kind of painting or drawing. The other pictures look like 3D renderings from a game or such.
Another great feature of DALL-E is the image-to-image editor. In this editor, you can highlight a part of an image and ask DALL-E to replace it with something funky. I made a couple of images of myself, but I think I’d better not show them here…
Let’s take a look at the key features of DALL-E.
Key Features
- Text-to-image generation
- Great image-to-image capabilities
- Produce multiple iterations of generated images
- Editing and retouching features
- Try for free
Pricing
You can sign up for DALL-E 2 on OpenAI’s website. Once accepted, you’re given some free credits (usually 50 for creating 50 images) and an option to purchase more credits.
5. MidJourney
| Rating | 4.9/5 |
| User Experience | 2.0/5 |
MidJourney is a popular not generally available AI art generator.
To use the tool, you need to apply to the official waiting list of the tool. If you get accepted, you will receive an invitation to a Discord server via which you can interact with the tool.
But once you get in, you will be surprised. Before applying, you can take a look at what other people have been able to create with it.
Make sure to read my complete guide to the best AI art generators.
MidJourney is an AI art tool that has won a competition against real artists. Don’t believe it? Make sure to read this article that has circulated around global news for a while now.
The detail and quality of the MidJourney images are something you haven’t seen. It’s not your traditional “I can generate art with AI” software. Instead, it is able to create imagery that is impossible to tell apart from a real artist’s pieces.
My Experience with MidJourney
To use MidJourney, you have to join their beta version. At the moment, the beta version is hosted on a Discord server.
To generate images with MidJourney, you have to join this discord server.
This is easy, just click “Join beta version” on their website. If you don’t have a Discord account, you can create one easily.
Anyway, it only took a minute for me to get into the Discord server.
To generate an image with MidJourney, you have to join one of the rooms that begin with “newbies”. Then you need to send a message that starts with /imagine followed by your input.
For instance, here are the images I generated with “/imagine A man walking on the moon during a thunderstorm“:
I think these results look awesome! Especially the bottom-right one looks cool and terrifying at the same time.
Similar to many other tools I’ve tested, MidJourney gives you back four output images.
And by the way, if you want to generate photorealistic images, MidJourney might be your best bet. Just look at the images on the Discord channels and you’ll be surprised by the quality.
Besides, looking at other creators’ images is a great way to get inspiration as to what kind of prompts you should send the tool to generate awesome outputs.
Key Features
- Generate images with a simple command and a text prompt.
- ATM the tool is in a beta version that you can use via Discord bots.
- The demo version is easy to use. All you need to do is give a small text input.
- Free trial version you can use to try the power of AI art.
Pricing
MidJourney gives a limited trial (~25 queries), and several options to buy a full membership. The specific price is not disclosed. You can find more information about the pricing by getting on the waiting list and being accepted as a demo user.
6. Fotor GoArt
| Rating | 4.5/5 |
| User Experience | 4.5/5 |
Fotor GoArt is an AI image generator that is great for creating NFT art. Using Fotor requires no technical or design experience. This makes it lightweight for beginners to get started with.
The Fotor AI art generator turns your imagination into digital art in a matter of minutes. You don’t have to worry about the technicalities of the process. There are 10,000+ templates you can choose from. With this amount of templates, you will surely find a suitable one for your project.
Make sure to read my complete guide to the best AI art generators.
Fotor focuses on the NFT aspect of AI arts. Once you have generated a masterpiece, you can export the NFT and start selling it on the NFT marketplaces.
My Experience with Fotor GoArt
Fotor is not a tex-to-image generator, unlike many other AI art generators that I’ve reviewed.
Thus, you cannot generate those awesome 3D renders or oil paintings you might be able to do on MidJourney or Stable Diffusion.
Instead, Fotor is a great image-to-image generator. The idea is you give it an image, and Fotor AI transforms it into an artistic image.
For example, let’s use this picture of a dog as an input to Fotor:
After inserting the image, Fotor takes 10-20 seconds to generate an output. Here is what mine looks like:
Wow! The AI turned my dog image into a cool-looking painting. This is something I could hang on my wall or print on my t-shirt.
Notice that Fotor adds a watermark to the images generated for free. To get rid of this, you must subscribe to a paid plan.
Anyway, regardless of the watermark, you get a really nice overview of how the tool performs for free before investing in it.
Fotor GoArt is sold as an NFT generator, but I disagree. It’s a great overall art generator, not just a great NFT image generator. There is nothing special about NFTs. An NFT can be an image, video, song, or any digital piece. So don’t let this confuse you when considering the tool.
Anyway, let’s take a closer look at the key features of this tool.
Key Features
- Use AI to enhance or completely transform your images.
- One-click enhancement for making the output images high quality.
- Background removing capabilities. This is useful for some NFT projects, for example.
- Color splashing for highlighting the colors of your images.
Pricing
You can try Fotor GoArt for free. This is a great way to test the tool before considering making a purchase.
There are three paid plans you can subscribe to:
- Basic: $0/month
- Pro: $8.99/month
- Pro+: $19.99/month
8. Deep Dream Generator
| Rating | 4.4/5 |
| User Experience | 4.3/5 |
One of the coolest AI art generator projects is the Deep Dream by Google developer Alexander Mordvintsev. This tool allows you to generate digital art with AI in a matter of seconds.
Deep Dream uses neural networks to generate images based on existing images. To make this technique work, the tool has trained itself with millions and millions of images using advanced AI algorithms and techniques.
The tool is easy to use. All you need to do is upload an image to the tool. Then you have to wait for a couple of seconds until the software gives you an output image.
Make sure to read my complete guide to the best AI art generators.
The main use of Deep Dream is creating digital art. This is because the tool has the ability to use AI to create different painting styles from different places and eras.
You have lots of creative freedom when using the tool. You can choose a category like animals, landscapes, or something more abstract before generating an image. Besides, you can choose between a selection of styles, such as deep style, thin style, and deep dream.
My Experience with Deep Dream Generator
The Deep Dream Generator is not only a text-to-art generator. It also comes with multiple art modes as well as image-to-image features.
The idea is simple:
- Choose and upload an image.
- Choose a style of output.
- Wait for a minute or two for the tool to generate the output.
- Preview and enjoy!
Let’s use the dog image again. This time, I’m going to convert the dog image into a cool urban wall painting. Here is the before-after comparison.
As you can tell, the image generated looks pretty cool. There are lots of styles to choose from. I just wanted to give the wall painting a try. To get the most out of the tool, make sure to play with different artistic styles.
Unlike most of the other tools I’ve tried, trying Deep Dream Generator takes a bit longer.
First, you need to sign up. Then you need to wait for the image generation for a minute or two. But I’d say it’s not bad for such great results…
You can also generate images from text with Deep Dream Generator. Besides, you can set up a Deep Dream Generator profile where you can share and interact with other AI artists. Here’s my Deep Dream Generator where you can see some of the images I’ve generated:
Let’s take a look at some of the features that Deep Dream Generator has.
Key Features
- Generate realistic images from input images using state-of-the-art AI algorithms.
- Get access to a powerful AI tool trained by millions of images.
- Lots of different art styles to generate images.
- Three main styles of painting to choose from.
Pricing
As you might imagine, generating an image with AI is a computationally heavy task. This is why Deep Dream Generator has come up with three energy plans with which you can generate images:
- Advanced: $19/month
- Professional: $39/month
- Ultra: $99/month
The usage of energy depends on which AI model you use and how many images you want to generate. You can find a detailed description of the energy usage on the subscription plans page.
8. Artbreeder
| Rating | 4.0/5 |
| User Experience | 4.0/5 |
One of the key players in the AI art generation space is Artbreeder. This tool’s main focus is on enhancing image quality with the help of the latest advancements in AI.
With Artbreeder, you can create multiple versions of your images using its AI and machine learning capabilities. For instance, you can create:
- Landscapes
- Portraits
- Anime figures
And many more works of art using the tool.
Artbreeder also makes it possible to turn your images into animated figures.
Make sure to read my complete guide to the best AI art generators.
One of the handy features of Artbreeder is the thousands of illustrations. You can store these illustrations in folders hosted by Artbreeder. In other words, the tool makes image management easy.
My Experience with Artbreeder
Artbreeder is a combination of text-to-art and an art editor. This makes it a unique tool out of all the AI tools I’ve tested.
To try this tool, you don’t have to sign up. Instead, you can just start generating right off the bat.
Artbreeder lets you draw shapes and images to form the foundation of the image you want to generate. Then it asks you for input to describe the image you want to generate.
Here you can see a piece of art I generated. First, you can see the pathetic painting on the left. That’s my input image for the tool. Then to generate the image, I gave it a text input: “A man walking on the moon during a thunderstorm“.
As you can see, this tool did not produce a photorealistic image. But it still clearly understood my intent.
It generated an image of a person wearing a space suit. It also drew a line from the cloud. I think it considers this the “lightning” part. Anyway, even though the image isn’t that impressive, I love how unique it looks. Besides, I’m probably not using it correctly…
Let’s take a look at the main features of this tool.
Key Features
- Image quality enhancing capabilities
- Generate a bunch of variations of an image
- Generate landscapes, anime, and portraits
- Photo management capabilities for easy access
- JPG and PNG support
Pricing
Artbreeder is a freemium software. There are lots of great features available for free. To get access to the full suite, you need to subscribe to a paid plan that costs $8.99/month.
9. StarryAI
| Rating | 4.5/5 |
| User Experience | 4.2/5 |
StarryAI is one of the only AI art generators that have a web version, an iOS version, and an Android version.
If you’re an iOS user or Android consumer, you might want to test StarryAI for free with your mobile device. This makes it possible to generate art wherever you go.
Make sure to read my complete guide to the best AI art generators.
Of course, you can also generate art by only describing what you want to see!
Similar to most of the other AI art generators, StarryAI gives you all rights to the images you generate. This means you can use the images wherever you want to.
The best part of StarryAI is it’s completely free to test. Besides, it has affordable pricing.
My Experience with StarryAI
StarryAI is a mobile app for iOS and Android. (Also, there’s a web app you can use too)
After you’ve downloaded the app, you get 5 free credits to work with. You don’t have to sign up, or add card details to start generating images.
Here I used one of my free credits to create the same prompt you saw earlier: “A man walking on the moon during a thunderstorm“.
Here are the results.
Especially the 2nd and the 3rd image look photorealistic and awesome! I think the first one is great too but the last one is pretty random.
Anyway, the tool was able to produce these images in a matter of minutes with a simple text input. I would never be able to create such images with that great of accuracy.
One issue you may face is that there are lots of users on this app at the same time. This can cause lengthy queues, so I recommend setting up notifications to remind you when the art generation is complete. On me, it only took a minute or two, so that wasn’t bad at all!
Key Features
- Automatic AI art generation without any user input is needed.
- Turn words into art using the tex-to-image AI.
- Free NFT generator for creating unique NFT art you can sell.
Pricing
You can start using StarryAI to generate art for free. If you run out of credits, you can purchase more:
- Starry AI 1 Month Pro: $11.99
- 40 Credits Pack: $15.99
- 40 Credits Premium: $7.99
FAQ
Here are some interesting questions and answers you might have related to AI art generation. Make sure to read these to get some clarification on the hype around AI art generation as well as its potential future of it.
What Is an AI Art Generator?
An AI art generator is software that uses the latest advancements in artificial intelligence to generate images based on text prompts.
The State-of-the-art AI art generators might change the way we create art in the future. With AI art generation software, you can generate portraits, landscapes, and abstract art. You can even mimic famous artists’ styles.
The idea of an AI art generator is simple: Turn a short text prompt into an image. For instance, here is an example of an AI art I generated using the Stable Diffusion demo:
This set of images was generated by AI based on my text input that says: “a monkey sitting on the top of a mountain in a rainstorm in Africa”.
The AI art generators are making their way to the mainstream. Although most of the impressive tools are limited to demos, it won’t take long before the best AI art generators will become a part of our everyday lives when it comes to arts, design, and branding.
How Do AI Art Generators Work?
The tech stack of AI generators varies from tool to tool. The algorithms that power these art generators are so massive and involve so many clever algorithms behind the scenes that it would make no sense to even try to explain it here.
So let’s focus on clarifying how the AI art generators work from the user’s perspective.
The basic working principle is easy.
- You enter a text input into the tool.
- The tool spits out an image that represents the image you described in the input.
The image is generated by an AI algorithm that creates a unique image that best represents your prompt. Because of this, the results might vary and even the slightest change in the prompt might result in a totally different set of generated images. Also, there is a lot of uncertainty as to what kind of images the tool will generate unless you do some prompt engineering.
One thing I think is important to understand and fair to mention is that most AI art generators use third-party technology behind the scenes.
So this means there might be 20 different AI art companies each using the exact same AI system under the hood. Moreover, the tech stack that powers the AI art generation can also be accessible to the general public and be much cheaper than using an AI art tool.
Wrap Up
Today you learned about the best AI art generator tools. I hope you were impressed by the performance of some of these tools. Remember, AI art is only going to get better. If you are new to the game, expect to see lots of improvements in the next couple of years or months even.
Thanks for reading.
Update: Bing AI Generator
Make sure to try Bing AI Image Generator. It just came into the scene and it’s awesome! It can generate images with text and works like a charm.