FLUX.1 vs. Midjourney v6: A Comprehensive Comparison

There's something new in the field of AI image generators:

The AI model FLUX.1 from the German developer team Black Forest Labs.

In this article, I've summarized everything you need to know about FLUX, including which models exist, how good it is, how it compares to Midjourney, and how you can currently use it.

1. What is FLUX?

FLUX is an AI that generates images based on entered prompts – so it does the same thing as Midjourney. FLUX was developed by a team that comes from the AI field and was involved in the development of Stable Diffusion models, for example.

For those interested in the technical background: Most image generators are currently based on Stable Diffusion and then incorporate additional processes like RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback).

FLUX, on the other hand, uses Flow Matching, which is new in this field but looks quite promising. Without going into more detail, what's exciting about this is that FLUX actually "works" differently than Midjourney, for example.

1.1 FLUX.1 Models

Black Forest Labs released three models of FLUX.1 directly:

• FLUX.1 [pro]
• FLUX.1 [dev]
• FLUX.1 [schnell]

The models differ in how quickly images are generated, how many details they have in the end, and how "prompt-accurate" they are.

Pro is the model that delivers the best images and our recommendation if you want good results. For experiments where you want to generate many images and quality isn't as important at first, you can use FLUX.1 [schnell].

2. How Good is FLUX.1?

To test this, we had Midjourney and FLUX.1 [pro] execute some prompts and looked at the results.

A big difference, of course, is that MJ directly generates 4 images while FLUX only generates one. So we occasionally had FLUX generate multiple images when we weren't immediately satisfied with the first one.

2.1 Prompt Accuracy

Prompt accuracy describes how well the image actually matches the text you entered. With Midjourney, prompt accuracy unfortunately sometimes leaves something to be desired, especially when things get more complex.

The prompt we tested with:

three-headed dragon with cowboy boots and hat, watching TV and eating nachos

Midjourney:

FLUX.1 [pro]:

None of the images depicted all five aspects, but in principle, the image generated by FLUX comes significantly closer to the prompt than the Midjourney images. And this isn't a random result, but actually consistent:

FLUX adheres better to prompts and on average depicts more aspects in the image than Midjourney. This is particularly noticeable with complex prompts that tend toward the fantastical (like our example).

2.2 Hands and Limbs

Midjourney just released Midjourney V6.1 a few days ago, which is supposed to better render hands, arms, legs, and feet. Let's take a look at how Midjourney performs in this category now.

We use this prompt for it:

photo of two judo fighters

Midjourney:

FLUX.1 [pro]:

Here too, the point goes more to FLUX. With Midjourney, we see quite a lot of limbs that are too many or too few.

We tested another prompt specifically for hands:

Photo of the hands of a couple who just got married. You can see the wedding rings

Midjourney:

FLUX.1 [pro]:

With Midjourney, we have errors in 3 out of 4 images that are visible at first glance. With FLUX, the first image is so good that you at least need to look more closely.

Overall, FLUX also performs slightly better in this category.

2.3 Text

Rendering text in images is a big challenge for image generators, as they don't render text as text and also have no understanding of words, etc., but for them it's simply individual pixels that need to be put together correctly.

Midjourney has become much better at this with the new version, but let's see how MJ compares to FLUX:

The prompt:

vintage sunset vector t-shirt design of a dog with the text "Live more worry less." isolated on white background

Midjourney:

FLUX.1 [pro]:

Midjourney gives us one image here (the first one) that's really great and three with minor and major errors. The FLUX image is error-free on the first try.

Let's look at another prompt:

clouds forming the word "now or never" and a plane flying through them

Midjourney:

FLUX.1 [pro]:

Here too, we have several Midjourney images with errors that are unusable. Furthermore, Midjourney also fails to follow the prompt – the words in none of the images look like they were formed from clouds.

With FLUX, on the other hand, we're getting closer to what we want. Unfortunately, the "or" is missing from the text and the words don't really look like clouds, but it tends to go in the right direction.

In fairness, we had FLUX run the prompt again and this result really impressed us:

The text is perfect and the words really look like they emerged from the clouds.

2.4 Aesthetics

Midjourney images have their own unique aesthetic and the developers place great value on visually appealing images that convey many emotions.

Other AI image generators often can't keep up with this, and that's exactly why Midjourney became so popular so quickly.

The prompt we entered:

a photo of an old couple sitting on a sofa. loving, calm, happy, serene

Midjourney:

FLUX.1 [pro]:

And now we're getting into the area where it's more about personal preferences: Both generators gave us beautiful and appropriate images, but they look fundamentally different.

Another example:

a woman sitting near a pond, crying. sad mood, melancholic

Midjourney:

FLUX.1 [pro]:

Here too, all images match the prompt, but you can clearly see the difference between Midjourney and FLUX. However, it's hard to judge what's better here, as this certainly depends on the respective use case.

3. Using FLUX.1

Currently, you can still use FLUX.1 for free and we would definitely recommend doing so.

FLUX.1 cannot be used directly through Black Forest Labs, but through platforms that have an interface for it.

We tried Glif for you and can highly recommend this platform for this purpose.

To use FLUX on Glif, sign up at Glif and then click on this link:

https://glif.app/@blogmojo/glifs/clzmfebn20000xveaoqayu2iq

You'll now come to an interface where you can enter a prompt on the left and images will be displayed on the right.

All you need to do now is enter the prompt in the field and press "Run This Glif". You can also enter the prompt in German, we've set it up to be automatically translated and optimized.

Have fun testing!