Head to head · Images · updated Oct 15, 2026
Stable Diffusion WebUI (AUTOMATIC1111) vs FLUX (Black Forest Labs)
Stable Diffusion WebUI (AUTOMATIC1111) scores 59 to FLUX (Black Forest Labs)'s 14 on public evidence for edit & retouch photos with AI, and they rank #1 and #3 there. Both are free to start. Numbers below are the same public signals the ranking uses, recomputed nightly — nothing here is sponsored.
Stable Diffusion WebUI (AUTOMATIC1111)
The classic self-hosted browser UI for running Stable Diffusion models locally with extensions like ControlNet.
+ Huge extension ecosystem and years of tutorials make almost any workflow achievable locally.
− Development has slowed, newer models like Flux need forks (Forge), and setup is fiddly for non-technical users.
FLUX (Black Forest Labs)
Family of image models (schnell, dev, Pro, Kontext) with open weights and a hosted API from the original Stable Diffusion team.
+ Best prompt adherence and hand/text rendering of any open-weight image model, with Kontext adding instruction-based editing.
− The dev weights are non-commercial, and the 12B model needs a 16GB+ GPU to run comfortably.
Side by side
public evidence| Stable Diffusion WebUI (AUTOMATIC1111) | FLUX (Black Forest Labs) | |
|---|---|---|
| Evidence score / 100 | 59 | 14 |
| GitHub stars | 165,057 | 0 |
| Hacker News stories, 30d | 0 | 0 |
| Release-feed mentions, 30d | 0 | 0 |
| Last activity | 227 days ago | – |
| Pricing | Open source · free; needs your own GPU | Open source · schnell/dev weights free; Pro via API per image |
| Platforms | windows, mac, linux | api, linux, web |
| Maker | AUTOMATIC1111 (community) | Black Forest Labs |
Which one?
Pick Stable Diffusion WebUI (AUTOMATIC1111) if
- you want the stronger public evidence (59 vs 14)
- you need it on mac, windows
- a bigger GitHub community matters (165,057 vs 0 stars)
Best for local SD 1.5 / SDXL generation.
Pick FLUX (Black Forest Labs) if
- you need it on api, web
Best for high-fidelity open-weight generation.