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

Best image models to run locally on a 24GB PC without a graphics card

A leaderboard of the best image models you can run locally on a computer with 24GB of RAM and no graphics card. Qwen-Image-2.1 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.

26 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 24GB RAM · no GPU → ~16GB for models (CPU, slow) · local only · reset
+ more
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=24&gpu=none&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
18Qwen-Image-2.1 · gguf-q4_k + Qwen3-VL 8B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) Alibaba69±2local (slow)~12GBhow to run › LMArena leaderboard datasetGenExam leaderboard (OpenGVLab/GenExam README, relaxed score)
63Z-Image (Base) · gguf-q4_k_m + Qwen3 4B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) Alibaba (Tongyi-MAI)58±2local (slow)~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 (slow)~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
82FLUX.2 [klein] 9B · gguf-q4_0 + Qwen3 8B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) Black Forest Labs55±2local (slow)~14GBhow 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)Rapidata/text-to-image-human-preference-6M (Benchmark.ai Image Benchmark) published dataset-card rankingsGEditBench v2: A Human-Aligned Benchmark for General Image EditingPaintBench: Deterministic Evaluation of Precise Visual Editing (arXiv:2606.00188v1)
88LongCat-Image · gguf-q4_k_m + Qwen2.5-VL q8_0 (sd.cpp) Meituan53±4local (slow)~15GBhow to run › QC-T2I-Bench: Scalable Question-Centric Text-to-Image Evaluation (Reliable Ranking, Fine-Grained Diagnosis, and Cost-Aware Routing)WISE: A World Knowledge-Informed Semantic Evaluation for Text-to-Image Generation (arXiv v4)Meituan LongCat — LongCat-Image technical report
97FLUX.2 [klein] 4B · gguf-q4_0 + Qwen3 4B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) Black Forest Labs52±2local (slow)~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
113Ovis-Image-7B · gguf-q4_0 + Ovis 2.5 (sd.cpp) Alibaba (AIDC-AI)48±7*local (slow)~12GBhow to run › Faithful, Enriched, and Precise: Benchmarking Natural-Science Illustration Generation by T2I models (FEPBench)
139Playground v2 (1024px aesthetic) · fp16 (sd.cpp) Playground41±4*local (slow)~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 (slow)~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 (slow)~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 (slow)~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 (slow)~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 (slow)~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 (slow)~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 (slow)~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 (slow)~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 (slow)~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 · q8_0 (sd.cpp --type) CompVis27±2local (slow)~2.1GBhow 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 · q8_0 (sd.cpp --type) CompVis27±4*local (slow)~2.1GBhow to run › GenEval authors' results: djghosh13/geneval README and arXiv 2310.11513v1
188Stable Diffusion v1.1 · q8_0 (sd.cpp --type) CompVis26±3local (slow)~2.1GBhow 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 · q8_0 (sd.cpp --type) CompVis26±3*local (slow)~2.1GBhow 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 · q8_0 (sd.cpp --type) Stability AI26±2local (slow)~2.1GBhow 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 (slow)~3GBhow to run › GenAI Arena: An Open Evaluation Platform for Generative Models (arXiv v3)
—Mage-Flow · bf16 + Qwen3-VL 4B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) Microsoftnot yet calibratedlocal (slow)~14GBhow to run › Mage-Flow: An Efficient Native-Resolution Foundation Model for Image Generation and Editing
—Mage-Flow-Base · bf16 + Qwen3-VL 4B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) Microsoftnot yet calibratedlocal (slow)~14GBhow to run › Mage-Flow: An Efficient Native-Resolution Foundation Model for Image Generation and Editing
—Mage-Flow-Turbo · bf16 + Qwen3-VL 4B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) Microsoftnot yet calibratedlocal (slow)~14GBhow to run › Mage-Flow: An Efficient Native-Resolution Foundation Model for Image Generation and Editing

+ 176 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