Modal
Serverless Python for GPU workloads.
Freemium 16–80 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 16 GB
- GPU class
- Datacenter GPU
- Quant
- —
Actually FreeWatermark-FreeHobbyist-FriendlyAPI
16 GB VRAM16 tools fit this tier
AI tools that run on 16 GB VRAM
Sixteen gigabytes is where things stop feeling tight. Apple Silicon Macs with 16 GB unified memory hit similar territory. Local video diffusion becomes practical (LTX-Video, CogVideoX 5B), and EXL2 LLM quants open up new throughput options.
Typical GPUs in this tier
RTX 4070 Ti SUPERRTX 4080 (16 GB)RTX 5070 TiApple M-series 16 GB unified
Capabilities
What you can run
- LTX-Video and CogVideoX 5B locally
- AnimateDiff with SDXL motion modules
- EXL2 quantized LLMs (better throughput than GGUF)
- Flux.1 [dev] full FP16 (just barely)
- Multi-pass ComfyUI workflows without OOM
What stays out of reach
- HunyuanVideo 13B at sensible speeds
- Wan 2.2 14B (needs 24 GB+)
- 70B LLMs without partial CPU offload
Recommended tools for 16 GB VRAM
Sorted by best fit for this tier — tools designed around your VRAM budget first, then by our power-user score.
AI-Toolkit (Ostris)
Modern training framework — Flux, SDXL, SD3 LoRAs in YAML.
Open Source 16–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 16 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- BF16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
TRELLIS
Microsoft Research's structured 3D representation model.
Open Source 16–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 16 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
Pyramid Flow
Memory-efficient T2V via pyramidal flow matching.
Open Source 16–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 16 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- BF16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
Wan 2.2
Open-weight video diffusion from Alibaba.
Open Source 12–48 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- Workstation GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
Kohya_ss
The standard SDXL/Flux LoRA training UI.
Open Source 12–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
3D Gaussian Splatting
The INRIA original — train your own splats.
Open Source 12–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- Mid GPU
- Quant
- FP32
Actually FreeNo SignupWatermark-Free
Hunyuan3D-2
Tencent's open 3D generator — multi-view, PBR, ready-to-use meshes.
Open Source 12–16 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeOpen SourceWatermark-FreeAPI
LTX-Video
Real-time-ish open video diffusion from Lightricks.
Open Source 12–16 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
OneTrainer
Modern alternative trainer for SD/SDXL/Flux.
Open Source 12–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large
Stability's MMDiT flagship at 8B params.
Open Source 12–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- Mid GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeWatermark-FreeHobbyist-FriendlyAPI
SUPIR
Diffusion-based photorealistic upscaler.
Open Source 12–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- Mid GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupWatermark-FreePlugin
CogVideoX 5B
Open-source text-to-video diffusion from THUDM.
Open Source 12–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
FluxGym
Dead-simple Flux LoRA training in a Gradio UI.
Open Source 12–20 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- Mid GPU
- Quant
- FP8
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
Stable Video Diffusion
Image-to-video diffusion — 25 frames, 14 or 25 steps.
Open Source 12–16 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeOpen SourceWatermark-FreeHobbyist-Friendly
ComfyUI-AnimateDiff-Evolved
Animation motion modules for ComfyUI.
Open Source 10–16 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 10 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free