# Leonardo.ai Alternatives 2027: 16 Paid, Free & Open-Source

Source: https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/leonardo-ai/
Prices checked: 2026-11-11 (Zekai Price Ledger)

The best Leonardo.ai alternatives in 2027 are Adobe Firefly (best overall, $9.99/mo), Bing Image Creator (best free plan: 10 Fast-mode creations free) and ComfyUI (best open source, GPL-3.0). Leonardo.ai itself has a free plan. Zekai checked these prices on vendor pages on 11 Nov 2026; 13 more are compared below, including 5 with a free plan and 7 open source.

| Tool | Type | Starting price | Free plan limit | Licence | Best for | Price checked | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leonardo.ai (the tool being replaced) | — | Free plan; paid price not published | 150 daily tokens, expiring after 24 hours | — | — | 2026-11-11 | [pricing](https://leonardo.ai/pricing) |
| Adobe Firefly | Free plan + paid | $9.99/mo | Limited daily generations; limits refresh daily | — | Image, video and audio generation in Adobe's ecosystem | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://firefly.adobe.com) [pricing](https://www.adobe.com/products/firefly/plans.html?locale=en-US) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/adobe-firefly/) |
| Midjourney | Paid | $10/mo | No free plan | — | Stylised art images from text prompts | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://www.midjourney.com) [pricing](https://www.midjourney.com/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/midjourney/) |
| Ideogram | Free plan + paid | $15/mo | Weekly slow credits for eligible signed-in accounts | — | Typography-led images with a low entry plan | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://ideogram.ai) [pricing](https://ideogram.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/ideogram/) |
| Krea AI | Free plan + paid | $9/mo | 100 compute units a day | — | Cheapest paid plan with a daily free tier | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://www.krea.ai) [pricing](https://www.krea.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/krea-ai/) |
| ChatGPT (image generation) | Free | Free plan; paid price not published | Free: limited image creation | — | Images made inside a general chat assistant | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://chatgpt.com/) [pricing](https://chatgpt.com/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/chatgpt/) |
| Playground | Free plan + paid | $15/mo | 2 downloads a day, 3 monthly credits | — | Design-style image editing with a free tier | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://playground.com) [pricing](https://playgroundai.com/design/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/playground/) |
| Recraft | Free | Free plan; paid price not published | Free plan; images are public and not for commercial use | — | Vector and brand-style image generation | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://www.recraft.ai) [pricing](https://www.recraft.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/recraft/) |
| Bing Image Creator | Free | Free plan; paid price not published | 10 free Fast-mode creations; unlimited in Standard mode | — | Free text-to-image with no subscription | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://www.bing.com/create) [pricing](https://www.bing.com/images/create) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/bing-image-creator/) |
| ComfyUI | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | GPL-3.0 | Node-graph pipelines for any open model |  | [site](https://github.com/comfyanonymous/ComfyUI) [code](https://github.com/comfyanonymous/ComfyUI) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/comfyui/) |
| InvokeAI | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | Apache-2.0 | Self-hosted image studio under Apache-2.0 |  | [site](https://invoke.ai) [code](https://github.com/invoke-ai/InvokeAI) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/invokeai/) |
| SD.Next | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | Apache-2.0 | Many GPU types and dozens of models |  | [site](https://github.com/vladmandic/sdnext) [code](https://github.com/vladmandic/sdnext) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/sd-next/) |
| SwarmUI | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | MIT | Web UI for Stable Diffusion, Flux and video models |  | [site](https://github.com/mcmonkeyprojects/SwarmUI) [code](https://github.com/mcmonkeyprojects/SwarmUI) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/swarmui/) |
| Stable Diffusion WebUI Forge | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | AGPL-3.0 | Familiar Stable Diffusion WebUI layout with leaner memory use |  | [site](https://github.com/lllyasviel/stable-diffusion-webui-forge) [code](https://github.com/lllyasviel/stable-diffusion-webui-forge) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/stable-diffusion-webui-forge/) |
| Fooocus | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | GPL-3.0 | Prompt-first SDXL generation, Midjourney-style |  | [site](https://github.com/lllyasviel/Fooocus) [code](https://github.com/lllyasviel/Fooocus) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/fooocus/) |
| FLUX.1 open weights | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | Apache-2.0 | Open FLUX.1 weights from the model's makers |  | [site](https://bfl.ai) [code](https://github.com/black-forest-labs/flux) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/flux-1-open-weights/) |
| HiDream-I1 | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | MIT | MIT-licensed image model with three speed tiers |  | [site](https://github.com/HiDream-ai/HiDream-I1) [code](https://github.com/HiDream-ai/HiDream-I1) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/hidream-i1/) |

## How each alternative compares with Leonardo.ai

- **Adobe Firefly** (Free plan + paid, $9.99/mo, checked 2026-11-11): Firefly lists Standard at $9.99 for 2,000 generative credits, adds partner models such as GPT Image, Nano Banana and FLUX beside Adobe's own, and sells per-license team plans. Switch if you want credit plans tied to Adobe accounts, team licences per seat and Adobe's own Firefly models. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you prefer a daily free token allowance and a rollover bank for unused monthly tokens.
- **Midjourney** (Paid, $10/mo, checked 2026-11-11): Midjourney sells fast GPU hours rather than credits: Basic lists 3.3 hours a month, Standard 15 hours with unlimited relax-mode images, and video generation arrives from the Pro plan. Switch if you want GPU-hour plans with unlimited relax-mode images and a single image style rather than a token pool. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you want a free daily token allowance, a model picker and 3D or audio tools in one account.
- **Ideogram** (Free plan + paid, $15/mo, checked 2026-11-11): Ideogram's Plus plan lists 1,000 priority credits a month, and Pro adds private generation, batch generation and unlimited character consistency; its Team plan is $20 per user with a two-user minimum. Switch if you want private generation and character consistency from a plan with a two-seat team option. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you want daily free tokens and video, 3D and audio generation beyond still images.
- **Krea AI** (Free plan + paid, $9/mo, checked 2026-11-11): Krea Free refreshes 100 compute units a day with LoRA training and Krea Nodes included, and paid yearly billing drops Basic to $5 a month on the plan card. Switch if you want LoRA training and node-based workflows on a free daily allowance before paying. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you want a token-based plan with a rollover bank and a broad model list inside one platform.
- **ChatGPT (image generation)** (Free, Free plan; paid price not published): Image creation sits inside the ChatGPT chat, so prompts are refined by conversation, and the pricing page grades it from limited on Free to unlimited and faster on Pro. Switch if you already pay for ChatGPT and want image edits made through chat instructions. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you want a dedicated image platform with model choice, presets and daily free tokens.
- **Playground** (Free plan + paid, $15/mo, checked 2026-11-11): Playground's free tier caps downloads at 2 a day and slows generation at peak hours, while Pro lists $15 a month and $12 a month billed yearly. Switch if you want a design-editor layout for logos, graphics and merchandise around generated images. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you need more than two downloads a day without waiting for limits to reset.
- **Recraft** (Free, Free plan; paid price not published): Recraft's API covers vector generation, inpainting, outpainting and background removal, billed in prepaid API Units, and paid subscription credits reset each cycle without rollover. Switch if you need vector output and an API billed in prepaid units rather than monthly tokens. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you want unused monthly tokens to roll into a bank instead of resetting each cycle.
- **Bing Image Creator** (Free, Free plan; paid price not published): Bing Image Creator has no paid tier on its page; guests get a daily creation limit, and signing in unlocks uploads, extra models and watermark settings. Switch if you only need free images and do not need training, upscaling or private generation. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you want a fixed daily token allowance, model choice and finetuning tools in one account.
- **ComfyUI** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): ComfyUI lets you wire samplers, checkpoints and add-ons together as a node graph on your own machine, with no credits or per-image limits. Switch if you want full control of the pipeline and models on your own hardware, with no per-image subscription. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you want finished-looking images from a short prompt without building node graphs or managing models and a GPU.
- **InvokeAI** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): InvokeAI is Apache-2.0 and publishes per-model minimums, from 4 GB VRAM for SD1.5 up to 24 GB for the largest FLUX.2 and Krea-2 models. Switch if you want a permissively licensed local studio and need to know the VRAM each model requires first. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you cannot spare a GPU with 8 GB or more of VRAM, or the disk space for large model files.
- **SD.Next** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): SD.Next runs on Nvidia, AMD, Intel Arc, Apple Silicon and CPU-only machines and supports dozens of image and video models from one web interface. Switch if you have a non-Nvidia GPU or a Mac and want one interface covering many model families. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you do not want to pick backends, offload settings and model families yourself.
- **SwarmUI** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): SwarmUI is MIT-licensed and covers image, video and some audio models in one modular web interface; its README labels the current release v0.9.8 Beta. Switch if you want an MIT-licensed web interface for Stable Diffusion and Flux with a script installer. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you do not want to run a beta-stage local app or choose models yourself.
- **Stable Diffusion WebUI Forge** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): Forge is a platform built on the Stable Diffusion WebUI that aims to speed up inference and optimise resource use, and says it syncs with the original every 90 days. Switch if you already know the Stable Diffusion WebUI layout and want a one-click Windows package. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you want a tool updated every week rather than one whose latest commit dates from mid-2025.
- **Fooocus** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): Fooocus is built only on Stable Diffusion XL and its README says it is in limited long-term support: bug fixes only, with no newer model architectures planned. Switch if you want a prompt-first interface on SDXL and accept a bug-fix-only project. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you want new model families and features rather than a frozen SDXL-only tool.
- **FLUX.1 open weights** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): FLUX.1 [schnell] weights are Apache-2.0, but [dev], Fill, Canny, Depth, Redux, Kontext and Krea [dev] weights carry a non-commercial licence unless you buy one from Black Forest Labs. Switch if you want the original FLUX.1 weights to run yourself and can work with schnell under Apache-2.0. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you need the [dev] models for paid work and do not want to buy a separate commercial licence.
- **HiDream-I1** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): HiDream-I1 releases code and model weights under MIT in Full (50 steps), Dev (28) and Fast (16) variants, but needs a separately licensed Llama 3.1 text encoder. Switch if you want MIT-licensed image weights and can accept the Llama 3.1 licence for the text encoder. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you do not want to log in to Hugging Face, accept extra licences and run command-line scripts.

## Open-source options in detail

- **ComfyUI** (https://github.com/comfyanonymous/ComfyUI): Licence: GPL-3.0; Commercial use: Yes; GPL-3.0 means sharing source if you distribute modified versions.; Runs on: Runs large models on as little as 4 GB VRAM plus 8 GB RAM.; Setup: easy: Desktop app installs it; you still pick and download models.; Last commit: 2026-11-13; Last release: 2026-11-10; GitHub stars: 147,000 (2026-11-13)
- **InvokeAI** (https://github.com/invoke-ai/InvokeAI): Licence: Apache-2.0; Commercial use: Yes (Apache-2.0).; Runs on: SDXL needs 8 GB VRAM and 16 GB RAM; runs on Windows, macOS, Linux.; Setup: easy: Download the Invoke launcher; model files are fetched separately and can be large.; Last commit: 2026-11-12; Last release: 2026-11-09; GitHub stars: 29,100 (2026-11-13)
- **SD.Next** (https://github.com/vladmandic/sdnext): Licence: Apache-2.0; Commercial use: Yes (Apache-2.0); each model you load has its own licence.; Runs on: Nvidia, AMD, Intel Arc, Apple Silicon or CPU-only; the README gives no VRAM minimum.; Setup: moderate: Clone the repo and run webui.sh or webui.bat; its installer manages dependencies.; Last commit: 2026-10-29; GitHub stars: 7,400 (2026-11-13)
- **SwarmUI** (https://github.com/mcmonkeyprojects/SwarmUI): Licence: MIT; Commercial use: Yes for SwarmUI (MIT); each model you load has its own licence.; Runs on: Windows, Linux or Apple-silicon Mac with .NET and Python 3.11/3.12; no VRAM figure given.; Setup: easy: Run install-windows.bat or install-linux.sh; models download separately.; Last commit: 2026-11-12; Last release: 2026-02-06; GitHub stars: 4,800 (2026-11-13)
- **Stable Diffusion WebUI Forge** (https://github.com/lllyasviel/stable-diffusion-webui-forge): Licence: AGPL-3.0; Commercial use: Yes; AGPL-3.0 means sharing changes if you run it as a service.; Runs on: Windows one-click package with CUDA builds; the README lists no VRAM minimum.; Setup: easy: Download the one-click package, extract it, run update.bat then run.bat.; Last commit: 2025-06-26; Last release: 2024-07-22; GitHub stars: 13,100 (2026-11-13)
- **Fooocus** (https://github.com/lllyasviel/Fooocus): Licence: GPL-3.0; Commercial use: Yes for the code (GPL-3.0); check each downloaded model's own licence.; Runs on: 4 GB Nvidia VRAM and 8 GB RAM minimum; CPU-only needs 32 GB RAM.; Setup: easy: Windows: unzip and run run.bat; first run downloads the SDXL models.; Last commit: 2025-09-02; Last release: 2024-08-12; GitHub stars: 53,900 (2026-11-13)
- **FLUX.1 open weights** (https://github.com/black-forest-labs/flux): Licence: Apache-2.0; Commercial use: Code and [schnell] weights: yes. [dev] weights: non-commercial unless you license them.; Runs on: Python 3.10 environment; the README gives no VRAM figure; TensorRT setup is optional.; Setup: hard: Clone, build a Python 3.10 venv, pip install, then fetch weights from Hugging Face.; Last commit: 2025-07-31; GitHub stars: 26,100 (2026-11-13)
- **HiDream-I1** (https://github.com/HiDream-ai/HiDream-I1): Licence: MIT; Commercial use: Yes (MIT); the Llama 3.1 text encoder it downloads has its own licence.; Runs on: CUDA 12.4 and Flash Attention recommended; the README gives no VRAM figure.; Setup: hard: Manual install, Flash Attention, and a gated Llama 3.1 download from Hugging Face.; Last commit: 2025-07-16; GitHub stars: 2,500 (2026-11-13)

## Questions

### What is the best alternative to Leonardo.ai in 2027?
Adobe Firefly is the best overall Leonardo.ai alternative on this page ($9.99/mo). For no cost, Bing Image Creator has a free plan (10 free Fast-mode creations; unlimited in Standard mode). To self-host, ComfyUI is open source (GPL-3.0).

### Is there a free version of Leonardo.ai?
Yes. Leonardo.ai has a free plan: 150 daily tokens, expiring after 24 hours. Paid plans start at Free plan; paid price not published, checked on 11 Nov 2026.

### Is there a 100% free alternative to Leonardo.ai?
Yes. ComfyUI, InvokeAI, SD.Next, SwarmUI, Stable Diffusion WebUI Forge, Fooocus, FLUX.1 open weights, HiDream-I1 are open source and free to self-host. Adobe Firefly, Ideogram, Krea AI, ChatGPT (image generation), Playground, Recraft, Bing Image Creator have a free plan with limits, shown in the table.

### How much do Leonardo.ai alternatives cost for a team of 5?
If each of 5 people buys the entry paid plan, at the prices Zekai checked on 11 Nov 2026, the monthly cost is Krea AI $45/mo, Adobe Firefly $49.95/mo, Midjourney $50/mo. Team and business plans can cost more per seat. The Zekai Cost Finder on this page recalculates for any team size.

### Which is better, Adobe Firefly or Leonardo.ai?
Firefly lists Standard at $9.99 for 2,000 generative credits, adds partner models such as GPT Image, Nano Banana and FLUX beside Adobe's own, and sells per-license team plans. Choose Adobe Firefly if you want credit plans tied to Adobe accounts, team licences per seat and Adobe's own Firefly models. Stay with Leonardo.ai if you prefer a daily free token allowance and a rollover bank for unused monthly tokens.

### Why are people leaving Leonardo.ai?
The documented reasons are: Leonardo's token rollover article (July 2026) lists banked tokens for Essential, Premium and Ultimate plans only; free users cannot use the Rollover Bank, and unused bank tokens are cancelled when a subscription is cancelled (28 Jul 2026). Each is sourced in the section above.

### What is better than Leonardo.ai?
It depends on the job. Midjourney suits stylised art, Ideogram and Recraft suit typography and vector work, Adobe Firefly suits Adobe workflows, and ComfyUI suits local control. Leonardo stays the pick for a broad model list with video and 3D.

## Related on Zekai

- [Adobe Firefly alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/adobe-firefly/)
- [Midjourney alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/midjourney/)
- [Ideogram alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/ideogram/)
- [Krea AI alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/krea-ai/)
- [ChatGPT (image generation) alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/chatgpt/)
- [FLUX (Black Forest Labs) alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/flux-ai/)
- [NightCafe alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/nightcafe/)
- [Stable Diffusion alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/stable-diffusion/)
- [AI for Gaming & Metaverse Development](https://zekaiwork.com/professions/ai-gaming-metaverse-development-tools/)

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Live table, team cost finder and price alerts: https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/leonardo-ai/