The time I compared a free AI art generator to a paid one and the difference was insane

I was working on a flyer for my moving company last month (don't laugh, I do my own marketing) and I needed a cool background image. I tried one of those free AI art sites first and the results looked like a 5 year old drew them with a mouse, weird blobby shapes and all. Then I shelled out $20 for a mid-tier paid generator and got a usable, professional looking image in 2 minutes flat. Has anyone else found that the free tools are basically useless for actual real world projects, or did I just pick a bad free one?

4 comments

4 Comments

olivia_allen7d ago

Yeah "toy apps" is kind of harsh but honestly it fits a bigger pattern I've noticed where free versions of everything from software to gym memberships just set you up to want the paid one anyway lol.

oliviat177d ago

Dollar for dollar you get what you pay for with these tools, no question. Free ones usually run on older model versions with way less training data, so they struggle with straight lines and text which is exactly what you need for a flyer background. Midjourney or DALL-E 3 are worth the money if you're doing anything commercial, even something simple like a moving truck graphic. Stable Diffusion is the one exception if you've got a decent computer and don't mind messing with settings, but that's not exactly plug and play either. Just skip the free online ones for real projects, they're basically toy apps for messing around.

wendy_jackson7d ago

Wait, wait wait - are you telling me those free ones can't even handle straight lines? Like, basic geometry? I had no idea it was that bad! I was just about to use one of those free apps to make a simple flyer for my son's garage sale next weekend, trying to save a few bucks, now I'm glad I read this first. So even if I just want a plain background with some text on it, those free things will mangle it? Man, that's rough.

holly_sanchez757d ago

I actually kinda disagree with you on that, @oliviat17. I get your point about the free ones being limited, but calling them "toy apps" is a bit harsh. For something like a garage sale flyer - which I'm assuming doesn't need to look like a professional ad - a free tool like Canva's AI generator or even Bing Image Creator (which uses DALL-E 3's free tier) can work fine if you know how to prompt it right. I've seen people make decent backgrounds with simple shapes and just add text later using the editing tools, you know? Not everything needs to be Midjourney quality, especially for a one-weekend event where nobody's judging the flyer's straight lines.