whatmodel.sh · find the best image models you can run

Best image models to run locally on a 16GB Mac

A leaderboard of the best image models you can run locally on a Mac with 16GB of memory. Ideogram 4.0 is #1 right now, followed by Z-Image (Base) and Z-Image-Turbo. Models are ranked by one score that combines 73 published benchmarks. Each model shows the download that fits and the command to run it.

24 models · scores combine 73 benchmarks · updated how it works · find a leaderboard · benchmark your machine
task[all tasks][text to image][image to image / editing]
Models for 16GB RAM · Apple Silicon → ~11GB fast · local only · reset
+ more
chip[M1][M1 Pro][M2][M2 Pro][M3][M4][M5][M6 (16GB)]
set[all sets][LMArena text-to-image · 197][CVTG-2K word accuracy · 3]

Filter the model list while keeping overall scores. Models without a shared score scale are not yet calibrated; select a set to see its own scores.

Detect your exact chip or graphics card:

curl -G whatmodel.sh/image -d max=0 --data-urlencode "mac=$(sysctl -n hw.memsize machdep.cpu.brand_string)"Mac

curl -G whatmodel.sh/image -d max=0 --data-urlencode "ram=$(awk '/MemT/{print $2}' /proc/meminfo)" --data-urlencode "nv=$(nvidia-smi --query-gpu=name,memory.total --format=csv,noheader 2>/dev/null)"Linux

curl.exe -G whatmodel.sh/image -d max=0 --data-urlencode "ram=$((gcim Win32_ComputerSystem).TotalPhysicalMemory)" --data-urlencode "nv=$(nvidia-smi --query-gpu=name,memory.total --format=csv,noheader 2>$null)"Windows

$ terminal

detecting your OS…

Run curl "whatmodel.sh/image?ram=16&gpu=apple&max=0"to get this list in your terminal (add &format=json for agents).

ram[8][16][24][32][48][64][96][128][192][256]GB
gpu[apple silicon][graphics card][none]
price[local][$0.001][$0.005][$0.02][$0.1][any]max per image

detecting your OS…

Score vs memory to run

#modelscore↓where↓speed↓RAM↓get itsources
#modelscore↓where↓speed↓RAM↓get itsources
23Ideogram 4.0 · mlx-q4 Ideogram66±2*local~6.1GBhow to run › LMArena leaderboard datasetRapidata/text-to-image-human-preference-6M (Benchmark.ai Image Benchmark) published dataset-card rankings
63Z-Image (Base) · gguf-q4_k_m + Qwen3 4B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) Alibaba (Tongyi-MAI)58±2local~10GBhow to run › Tongyi-MAI (Alibaba) — Z-Image technical reportQC-T2I-Bench: Scalable Question-Centric Text-to-Image Evaluation (Reliable Ranking, Fine-Grained Diagnosis, and Cost-Aware Routing)UltraText Bench: A Comprehensive Bilingual Benchmark for Evaluating Visual Text Rendering in Image Generation (arXiv:2610.09823v1)
78Z-Image-Turbo · gguf-q3_k (+ Qwen3-4B Q4_K_M text encoder) Alibaba (Tongyi-MAI)55±1local~7.7GBhow to run › Tongyi-MAI (Alibaba) — Z-Image technical reportLMArena leaderboard datasetQC-T2I-Bench: Scalable Question-Centric Text-to-Image Evaluation (Reliable Ranking, Fine-Grained Diagnosis, and Cost-Aware Routing)UltraText Bench: A Comprehensive Bilingual Benchmark for Evaluating Visual Text Rendering in Image Generation (arXiv:2610.09823v1)Cosmos 3: Omnimodal World Models for Physical AI (arXiv:2606.02800v4)Can Image Models Imagine Time? ImageTime: A Novel Benchmark for Probing Visual World Modeling Through Spatiotemporal Consistency+1
97FLUX.2 [klein] 4B · gguf-q4_0 + Qwen3 4B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) Black Forest Labs52±2local~6.9GBhow to run › LMArena leaderboard datasetQC-T2I-Bench: Scalable Question-Centric Text-to-Image Evaluation (Reliable Ranking, Fine-Grained Diagnosis, and Cost-Aware Routing)UltraText Bench: A Comprehensive Bilingual Benchmark for Evaluating Visual Text Rendering in Image Generation (arXiv:2610.09823v1)GEditBench v2: A Human-Aligned Benchmark for General Image Editing
127FLUX.1 [dev] · mlx-4bit Black Forest Labs44±1local~7.7GBhow to run › LMArena leaderboard datasetT2I-ReasonBench: Benchmarking Reasoning-Informed Text-to-Image Generation (Findings of ACL 2026)QC-T2I-Bench: Scalable Question-Centric Text-to-Image Evaluation (Reliable Ranking, Fine-Grained Diagnosis, and Cost-Aware Routing)TIIF-Bench: How Does Your T2I Model Follow Your Instructions? (arXiv v3)Verifiable Visual Rewards Transfer from Synthetic Scenes to Natural Prompts (VVRBench), arXiv:2609.35641v1MMMG: A Massive, Multidisciplinary, Multi-Tier Generation Benchmark for Text-to-Image Reasoning (arXiv:2506.10963v2)+5
135FLUX.1 [schnell] · mlx-4bit Black Forest Labs42±2local~7.7GBhow to run › T2I-ReasonBench: Benchmarking Reasoning-Informed Text-to-Image Generation (Findings of ACL 2026)Rapidata/Face_Generation_Benchmark (Human Face Generation Alignment) published dataset-card leaderboardVerifiable Visual Rewards Transfer from Synthetic Scenes to Natural Prompts (VVRBench), arXiv:2609.35641v1WISE: A World Knowledge-Informed Semantic Evaluation for Text-to-Image Generation (arXiv v4)
139Playground v2 (1024px aesthetic) · fp16 (sd.cpp) Playground41±4*local~8.8GBhow to run › GenAI Arena: An Open Evaluation Platform for Generative Models (arXiv v3)
148Stable Diffusion XL 0.9 (base) · q8_0 (sd.cpp --type) Stability AI40±6*local~4.9GBhow to run › WISE: A World Knowledge-Informed Semantic Evaluation for Text-to-Image Generation (arXiv v4)tgxs002/HPSv2 repository README, HPS v2 benchmark table
149Stable Diffusion 3 Medium · q8_0 (sd.cpp --type) Stability AI40±2local~11GBhow to run › T2I-ReasonBench: Benchmarking Reasoning-Informed Text-to-Image Generation (Findings of ACL 2026)EvalMuse-40K: A Reliable and Fine-Grained Benchmark with Comprehensive Human Annotations for Text-to-Image Generation Model Evaluation (arXiv v2)WISE: A World Knowledge-Informed Semantic Evaluation for Text-to-Image Generation (arXiv v4)HPSv3 repository README, image generation benchmark table (MizzenAI/HPSv3)
156SDXL-Lightning (4-step UNet) · fp16 (sd.cpp) ByteDance37±3*local~8.8GBhow to run › GenAI Arena: An Open Evaluation Platform for Generative Models (arXiv v3)SDXL-Lightning: Progressive Adversarial Diffusion Distillation (arXiv:2402.13929v3)
161SSD-1B · fp16 (sd.cpp) Segmind36±4*local~5.9GBhow to run › EvalMuse-40K: A Reliable and Fine-Grained Benchmark with Comprehensive Human Annotations for Text-to-Image Generation Model Evaluation (arXiv v2)
167Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 · fp16 (sd.cpp) Stability AI34±1local~8.8GBhow to run › GenAI Arena: An Open Evaluation Platform for Generative Models (arXiv v3)EvalMuse-40K: A Reliable and Fine-Grained Benchmark with Comprehensive Human Annotations for Text-to-Image Generation Model Evaluation (arXiv v2)GenEval authors' results: djghosh13/geneval README and arXiv 2310.11513v1EvalAlign: Supervised Fine-Tuning Multimodal LLMs with Human-Aligned Data for Evaluating Text-to-Image Models (arXiv:2406.16562v3)ImagenWorld: Stress-Testing Image Generation Models with Explainable Human Evaluation on Open-ended Real-World TasksConceptMix: A Compositional Image Generation Benchmark with Controllable Difficulty (arXiv v1)+8
170SDXL-Turbo · fp16 (sd.cpp) Stability AI34±2local~8.8GBhow to run › GenAI Arena: An Open Evaluation Platform for Generative Models (arXiv v3)EvalMuse-40K: A Reliable and Fine-Grained Benchmark with Comprehensive Human Annotations for Text-to-Image Generation Model Evaluation (arXiv v2)ConceptMix: A Compositional Image Generation Benchmark with Controllable Difficulty (arXiv v1)SDXL-Lightning: Progressive Adversarial Diffusion Distillation (arXiv:2402.13929v3)
178Dreamlike Photoreal 2.0 · q8_0 (sd.cpp --type) Dreamlike.art30±3local~2.1GBhow to run › EvalAlign: Supervised Fine-Tuning Multimodal LLMs with Human-Aligned Data for Evaluating Text-to-Image Models (arXiv:2406.16562v3)HEIM: Holistic Evaluation of Text-to-Image Models (arXiv 2311.04287v1)tgxs002/HPSv2 repository README, HPS v2 benchmark table
183DALL·E Mega (minDALL-E) · fp32 DALL·E Mini / minDALL-E29±4local~8GBhow to run › TIFA: Accurate and Interpretable Text-to-Image Faithfulness Evaluation with Question Answering (arXiv v3)HEIM: Holistic Evaluation of Text-to-Image Models (arXiv 2311.04287v1)tgxs002/HPSv2 repository README, HPS v2 benchmark table
185Openjourney · q8_0 (sd.cpp --type) PromptHero28±2local~2.1GBhow to run › GenAI Arena: An Open Evaluation Platform for Generative Models (arXiv v3)EvalAlign: Supervised Fine-Tuning Multimodal LLMs with Human-Aligned Data for Evaluating Text-to-Image Models (arXiv:2406.16562v3)ImagenHub: Standardizing the evaluation of conditional image generation models (arXiv v4)HEIM: Holistic Evaluation of Text-to-Image Models (arXiv 2311.04287v1)tgxs002/HPSv2 repository README, HPS v2 benchmark table
186Stable Diffusion v1.4 · fp32 CompVis27±2local~8GBhow to run › GenEval authors' results: djghosh13/geneval README and arXiv 2310.11513v1EvalAlign: Supervised Fine-Tuning Multimodal LLMs with Human-Aligned Data for Evaluating Text-to-Image Models (arXiv:2406.16562v3)ConceptMix: A Compositional Image Generation Benchmark with Controllable Difficulty (arXiv v1)ImageReward: Learning and Evaluating Human Preferences for Text-to-Image Generation (arXiv 2304.05977v4)HEIM: Holistic Evaluation of Text-to-Image Models (arXiv 2311.04287v1)tgxs002/HPSv2 repository README, HPS v2 benchmark table
187Stable Diffusion v1.3 · fp32 CompVis27±4*local~8GBhow to run › GenEval authors' results: djghosh13/geneval README and arXiv 2310.11513v1
188Stable Diffusion v1.1 · fp32 CompVis26±3local~8GBhow to run › GenEval authors' results: djghosh13/geneval README and arXiv 2310.11513v1TIFA: Accurate and Interpretable Text-to-Image Faithfulness Evaluation with Question Answering (arXiv v3)REAL: Realism Evaluation of Text-to-Image Generation Models for Effective Data Augmentation (arXiv:2502.10663v1)
189Stable Diffusion v1.2 · fp32 CompVis26±3*local~8GBhow to run › GenEval authors' results: djghosh13/geneval README and arXiv 2310.11513v1EvalMuse-40K: A Reliable and Fine-Grained Benchmark with Comprehensive Human Annotations for Text-to-Image Generation Model Evaluation (arXiv v2)
191Stable Diffusion v1.5 · fp32 Stability AI26±2local~8GBhow to run › GenEval authors' results: djghosh13/geneval README and arXiv 2310.11513v1EvalAlign: Supervised Fine-Tuning Multimodal LLMs with Human-Aligned Data for Evaluating Text-to-Image Models (arXiv:2406.16562v3)EvalMuse-40K: A Reliable and Fine-Grained Benchmark with Comprehensive Human Annotations for Text-to-Image Generation Model Evaluation (arXiv v2)TIFA: Accurate and Interpretable Text-to-Image Faithfulness Evaluation with Question Answering (arXiv v3)HEIM: Holistic Evaluation of Text-to-Image Models (arXiv 2311.04287v1)Evaluating Numerical Reasoning in Text-to-Image Models (GeckoNum, arXiv v3)+1
193LCM Dreamshaper v7 · openvino-fp16 (OpenVINO GenAI) SimianLuo (LCM authors)23±4*local~3GBhow to run › GenAI Arena: An Open Evaluation Platform for Generative Models (arXiv v3)
—Mage-Flow · int8 convrot + Qwen3-VL 4B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) Microsoftnot yet calibratedlocal~8.9GBhow to run › Mage-Flow: An Efficient Native-Resolution Foundation Model for Image Generation and Editing
—Mage-Flow-Turbo · int8 convrot + Qwen3-VL 4B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) Microsoftnot yet calibratedlocal~8.9GBhow to run › Mage-Flow: An Efficient Native-Resolution Foundation Model for Image Generation and Editing

+ 178 more don't fit your machine or budget · show them

202 of 202 catalogue models listed here · sources and licences

* new or thinly tested: ranked on too few benchmark results · † only the maker’s own numbers so far · ~RAM is estimated; full context may need more memory