Image generation

Stable Diffusion

The model that started open image generation. A huge ecosystem of fine-tunes, styles and plugins; runs even on a home PC. The popular SDXL-Lightning and Hyper-SD accelerators were made by ByteDance.

Developer
Stability AI, UK
First release
Aug 2022
Latest release
Oct 2024
Sizes
0.9B – 8B
License
Commercial use with conditionsSD 1.x — CreativeML OpenRAIL-M, SDXL — OpenRAIL++, SD3 and SD3.5 — Stability AI Community License (free for revenue under $1M per year); Stable Cascade — non-commercial research license
Ready-made builds
GGUF
Running
On your own serverNeeds a GPU
Industries
Marketing and content, Media and production, Retail and marketplaces
Deploy on your server Hugging Face GitHub

What it does

  • Illustrations and banners for advertising
  • Backgrounds and scenes for product cards
  • Fine-tuning to a brand style
  • Draft visuals for designers

Where it is used

Marketing and advertisingOnline storesDesign studiosPublishers

Hardware requirements

LaptopLaptop or regular PC, up to 8 GB of VRAM — smaller versions
fits
1 GPUOne GPU with 16–80 GB — mid-size versions
fits
ClusterServer with several GPUs — flagship versions
no versions

Versions

  1. SD3.5 Large / Medium
  2. SD3 Medium
  3. Stable Cascade
  4. SDXL Turbo
  5. SDXL 1.0
  6. SD 2.0
  7. SD 1.5
  8. SD 1.4

How to run it

On your own serverWeights are downloaded from Hugging Face and served with vLLM (load and API) or llama.cpp (modest hardware). The model then runs in a closed network with no per-request fees.Hugging Face
How much hardware you needCalculate the VRAM for the model size, context length and number of concurrent requests.Open the hardware calculator

I can set this up end to end: pick the model size, deploy it on your server and connect it to your systems. Quantization compresses a model so it takes less video memory and runs on more modest hardware. Answers change slightly, so quality is checked on your own examples.

Frequently asked questions

Can Stable Diffusion be used in a commercial project?

With conditions. License: SD 1.x — CreativeML OpenRAIL-M, SDXL — OpenRAIL++, SD3 and SD3.5 — Stability AI Community License (free for revenue under $1M per year); Stable Cascade — non-commercial research license. Restrictions vary — region, company revenue, attribution requirements. Have a lawyer check the terms before a commercial launch.

What hardware does Stable Diffusion need?

At minimum: Laptop or regular PC, up to 8 GB of VRAM — smaller versions. Without a GPU the model is not practical. You can calculate the exact VRAM for your model size and context in the hardware calculator.

Does Stable Diffusion support Russian?

Language does not matter for this model: it does not work with text.

Where can I download Stable Diffusion and what does it cost?

The Stable Diffusion weights are open and free to download. You only pay for the hardware it runs on and for the setup. Source links are at the bottom of this page.

How I deploy it for clients

  1. SelectionI pick the model size for your task and hardware and test it on your examples.
  2. DeploymentI deploy it on your server or in a closed network and provide an API.
  3. Fine-tuningI fine-tune it on your data (LoRA) or connect a knowledge base — whichever is cheaper for the task.
  4. IntegrationI connect it to your CRM, ERP, bot, website or team chat and set up monitoring.

Comparisons

Similar models

Image generationFLUXBlack Forest Labs · GermanyCommercial use with conditions

Image generation from the creators of Stable Diffusion. Renders text in images well and keeps the composition.

DetailsImage generationSANANVIDIA · USACommercial use allowed

NVIDIA's fast image model: 4K images in seconds, runs even on a laptop GPU. The Sprint version generates in 1–2 steps.

DetailsImage generationZ-ImageAlibaba (Tongyi-MAI) · ChinaCommercial use allowed

A compact 6B model with photorealism on par with large models. The Turbo version produces an image in a few steps on a regular gaming GPU.

Details

Source: huggingface.co/stabilityai/stable-diffusion-3.5-large. Data checked against the model card on 22 Sep 2026. Have a lawyer review the license before commercial launch.