Which AI Image Generator Is Best?

Prompt: Make me an image of a holiday card from a New York City tech publication of goblins and vampires with blue color themes

Ranking: Dall-E, Playground, Midjourney, Meta

Analysis: Dall-E won the holiday card contest by a mile. “New York Tech City” and “Happy Holistmas” are likely flubs, but I found them charming. It also absolutely matched the tone and concepts I was looking for. Midjourney made something cool, but I am terrified of it. Playground got pretty close, and I think Meta confused New York City with the mafia because this holiday card looks strangely intimidating.

Verdict: Midjourney was the most successful AI image generator of the four that Gizmodo tested. The images Midjourney produces are incredibly detailed, shockingly creative, and often prove more interesting than what I would have come up with on my own, which are the main things most people are looking for in an AI image generator. Not to mention, Midjourney is cheaper than Dall-E or Playground, though you are only able to use it through Discord. If you’re unfamiliar with Discord, that can be a hurdle, but I found my experience using Midjourney to be very enjoyable and well worth the $10 a month.

OpenAI’s Dall-E is the runner-up, but I think Dall-E did a better job of matching the tone of my requests. In other words, Dall-E more often gets pretty close to what I’m imagining, while Midjourney often gives me something better. That being said, sometimes I don’t want a creative image, I just want exactly what I ask for. If that’s what you’re looking for, Dall-E is your go-to.

Playground wins third because it made a good amount of flubs, but occasionally surprised me with wonderful images that looked like they could have been from Dall-E or Midjourney. In its current state, I would not pay for the unlimited version of Playground when I could pay $5 more for Dall-E or, better yet, $5 less for Midjourney.

And in the last place, Imagine with Meta AI, the only completely free product on the list. I wanted to like Meta AI, and I actually do enjoy its cartoonish creations. However, it’s not even remotely close to the capabilities of Midjourney. If you do need something quick, easy, and free, I would suggest just using the free trials of Playground, Dall-E, or Midjourney.