Which AI image models to try first, and why: a ranked starting list
Fast Facts:
The hottest model of the week is not always the best first model. New releases need the newest tools, the biggest GPUs and prompts nobody has figured out yet. A good first model is forgiving: it looks good with a short prompt, it runs on an 8 GB card or on the cloud partners, and it has hundreds of LoRAs and example images to learn from. This list is built on that rule, using the download and run figures this site collects.
The list is one model per job. Image generation is not one task but five or six (photo, illustration, editing, fast drafts, video, enlargement), and the model that is best at one is usually mediocre at another. Learn one per job, then explore the ranking pages for alternatives. The weekly ranking on this site shows what is replacing what; the family pages show the whole lineage.
Everything here is linked to its catalog page, where you will find the exact prompts of the example images, the file hashes, the memory requirements and a Run button for the two cloud partners. Try each on the cloud before downloading; a checkpoint is 6 GB for SDXL and 12 to 24 GB for Flux, and your taste will change within the week.
Reference
Name | Type | What it is | |
|---|---|---|---|
DreamShaper XL / Juggernaut XL / RealVisXL | |||
| 2. Illustrious or Pony fine-tune | Anime and stylised characters. Tag prompts (1girl, masterpiece, artist tags). 8 GB. Knows thousands of characters by name. | ||
| 3. Flux dev (fp8) | |||
4. A turbo / lightning model | Drafting. 4 to 8 steps, CFG 1-2, seconds per image. Use it to find a composition, then redo on the full model. | ||
Fixing hands, swapping objects, extending canvases. Same prompt style as its family. | |||
6. A video model | Image to video and text to video. 16 GB locally for the small versions; the cloud partners run the large ones. | ||
7. An upscaler | 4x-UltraSharp / Real-ESRGAN / SwinIR | Enlarging finals 2x to 4x. Tiny files, run in seconds, part of every UI. |
Step by step
- Day 1: pick the SDXL photo fine-tune. Copy three example prompts from its page, change the subject, generate at 1024x1024, 28 steps, DPM++ 2M Karras, CFG 6.
- Day 2: the anime fine-tune. Read the Illustrious and Pony tag guide on this site first; prompts here are comma-separated tags with quality tags in front.
- Day 3: Flux dev. Write a full sentence, no negative prompt, guidance 3.5, 24 steps. Notice how it handles text in quotes and counted objects.
- Day 4: the turbo model. Generate 20 drafts in the time one Flux image took; keep the compositions you like and recreate the best on Flux or SDXL with the same seed shape.
- Day 5: inpainting. Take a Day 1 image with a bad hand, mask it, prompt "hand resting on the table", denoise 0.6. Read the img2img and inpainting guide.
- Day 6: video. Take your best image and animate it with Wan 2.2 image-to-video, a short motion prompt ("she turns her head and smiles, slow camera push-in"), 81 frames at 16 fps.
- Day 7: upscale the three finals you like most with 4x-UltraSharp, then downscale to 2x in an image editor for crisp results.
- After the week, open the weekly ranking and the family pages and start replacing one model at a time.
Examples
The same subject, three first models
SDXL photo: "a street musician playing accordion in a rainy Lisbon alley, warm shop lights, 35mm, candid" | 1024x1024 | 28 steps | CFG 6
Illustrious: "1boy, accordion, street, rain, night, warm lighting, from side, masterpiece, best quality, very aesthetic" | 832x1216 | 28 steps | CFG 5
Flux dev: "A candid 35mm photo of a street musician playing an accordion in a narrow rainy alley in Lisbon at night; warm light spills from a bakery window on the left." | 1024x1024 | 24 steps | guidance 3.5
PirateDiffusion commands for the week
/render <juggernaut-xl> a street musician playing accordion in a rainy alley, warm lights, 35mm /size:1024x1024
/render <wai-illustrious> 1boy, accordion, street, rain, night, masterpiece, best quality /size:832x1216
/workflow /run:wan22-i2v slow camera push in, he looks up and smiles (reply to your image)
Tips
- Use the family badge on each card: a LoRA only works with checkpoints of the same family, so learn families before you learn model names.
- The Favs heart on the cards keeps your short list in your browser; no account is needed and nothing is sent to us.
- If the first results are ugly, change the model before the prompt. A wrong model needs a perfect prompt; a right model needs a short one.
- Pony and Illustrious are both SDXL but prompt differently and share few LoRAs. Pick one for the first week.
- Flux Krea dev, Flux SRPO and the many realism LoRAs exist because plain Flux dev has a recognisable glossy look; the family page lists the fixes.
- Z-Image Turbo and FLUX.2 Klein arrived after this list was written and are now better first fast models than SDXL Lightning; the weekly ranking stays current even when articles do not.
Troubleshooting
The model I downloaded looks nothing like its examples
Why it happens
Different size, sampler or missing VAE; or the examples used a LoRA that is listed in their prompt.
How to fix it
Copy the full settings line under the example image; add the LoRA it names.
Flux is unusably slow on my 8 GB card
Why it happens
How to fix it
Anime model draws photos, photo model draws anime
Why it happens
Prompt style mismatch: tags on a photo model or sentences on a tag model.
How to fix it
Match the prompt style to the family; the family page shows the convention.
Too many choices on the family page
Why it happens
Fine-tunes of a popular base number in the hundreds.
How to fix it
Sort by hot, pick the top checkpoint, ignore the rest for a week.
Video model produces a slideshow or a still
Why it happens
Motion prompt missing or the frame count too low.
How to fix it
Describe the motion, not the scene; 81 frames on Wan 2.2; keep the camera instruction to one movement.
Questions
Should I start with the newest model?
No. Start with the model that has the most LoRAs and examples in its family; newness buys little for a beginner. Move up once the basics are boring.
SD 1.5 is small and fast, why is it not on the list?
Its hands, faces and prompt following are a generation behind. It is still worth knowing for inpainting and for 4 GB cards, and the SD 1.5 family page lists the best fine-tunes.
One model for everything?
Flux dev or Qwen Image come closest for images, Wan 2.2 for video. Specialists still win in their lane.
Where do these recommendations come from?
Downloads, runs and search interest collected by this site, plus the LoRA count per family, which measures how much a community has invested in a base.
What about NSFW models?
They are hidden from listings by default and can be turned on in the cog menu; nothing is stored about that choice.
Links and sources
- Weekly ranking
- SDXL family page
- Flux family page
- Wan family page
- Upscalers family page
- PirateDiffusionAD
- BitVector web appAD
Models in this guide
Written by
Runs this ship. Has opinions about VAE decode times that nobody asked for. Believes weights want to be free and that any model you cannot download is a subscription with extra steps. Will not be taking questions about the 400 GB of checkpoints on the NAS.
All guides by Captain
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