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

Best image editing models to run locally on a 32GB Mac

A leaderboard of the best image editing models you can run locally on a Mac with 32GB of memory. Qwen-Image-2.1 is #1 right now, followed by FLUX.2 [klein] 9B and FLUX.2 [dev]. Models are ranked on human votes and image editing tests. Each model shows the download that fits and the command to run it.

6 models · scores combine 15 benchmarks · updated how it works · find a leaderboard · benchmark your machine
task[all tasks][text to image][image to image / editing]

Scores use reviewed image to image / editing evaluations only. Compare scores within this task. Models without task measurements are excluded.

Models for 32GB RAM · Apple Silicon → ~21GB fast · local only · reset
+ more
chip[M1 Pro][M1 Max][M2 Pro][M2 Max][M4][M5][M6 (24/32GB)]

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=32&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][$0.002][$0.005][$0.01][$0.02][$0.05][$0.1][any]max per image

detecting your OS…

Score vs memory to run

#modeltask score↓where↓speed↓RAM↓get itsources
#modeltask score↓where↓speed↓RAM↓get itsources
15Qwen-Image-2.1 · int8 convrot + Qwen3-VL 8B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) Alibaba66±3*local~16GBhow to run › LMArena leaderboard dataset
39FLUX.2 [klein] 9B · gguf-q4_0 + Qwen3 8B q4_k_m (sd.cpp) Black Forest Labs51±3*local~14GBhow to run › LMArena leaderboard datasetGEditBench v2: A Human-Aligned Benchmark for General Image Editing
48FLUX.2 [dev] · mlx-int4 (Flux2CLI, Swift) Black Forest Labs49±2local~20GBhow to run › Edit-Compass & EditReward-Compass: A Unified Benchmark for Image Editing and Reward ModelingLMArena leaderboard datasetGEditBench v2: A Human-Aligned Benchmark for General Image Editing
51FLUX.2 [klein] 4B · bf16 + Qwen3 4B bf16 (sd.cpp) Black Forest Labs47±3*local~20GBhow to run › LMArena leaderboard datasetGEditBench v2: A Human-Aligned Benchmark for General Image Editing
65FLUX.1 Kontext [dev] · gguf-q4_k_m (sd.cpp) Black Forest Labs36±2local~21GBhow to run › Meituan LongCat — LongCat-Image technical reportLMArena leaderboard datasetEdit-Compass & EditReward-Compass: A Unified Benchmark for Image Editing and Reward ModelingUnicEdit-10M: A Dataset and Benchmark Breaking the Scale-Quality Barrier via Unified Verification for Reasoning-Enriched EditsGEditBench v2: A Human-Aligned Benchmark for General Image EditingCREval: An Automated Interpretable Evaluation for Creative Image Manipulation under Complex Instructions (arXiv:2603.26174v1)+2
71Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large · q8_0 (sd.cpp --type) Stability AI33±7*local~18GBhow to run › ServImage: An Image Generation and Editing Benchmark from Real-world Commercial Imaging Services (arXiv:2604.24023v2)

+ 75 more don't fit your machine or budget · show them

81 of 81 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