FLUX.1 [dev]
12B parameter open-weight diffusion model.
Open Source 8–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 8 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
Flux.1 Schnell
Black Forest Labs' 4-step distilled Flux.
Open Source 8–16 GB VRAMRuns locally
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-FreeHobbyist-FriendlyAPIPlugin
Requires: ComfyUI, Stable Diffusion WebUI Forge, AUTOMATIC1111 (stable-diffusion-webui)
Visit Flux.1 SchnellUpdated 2026-04-02 · Direct link
Hardware requirements
Runs locally · Mid GPU (12 GB)
Min VRAM
8 GB
Rec. VRAM
16 GB
Min RAM
16 GB
Rec. RAM
32 GB
Disk
25 GB
GPU class
Mid GPU
11.8+Apple Silicon ✓GPU RequiredQuant: FP16, NF4, FP8
NF4 quants squeeze it onto 6–8 GB; FP16 needs 16 GB+.
Screenshot placeholder · Flux.1 Schnell
What is Flux.1 Schnell?
Flux.1 Schnell is BFL's Apache-2.0 turbo-distilled variant of Flux: 4 sampling steps to a finished image instead of 20–50. Quality is slightly below flux-dev but the speed/cost ratio is excellent — and unlike dev, the licence is fully commercial-friendly.
Pros & cons
Pros
- Apache 2.0 — no commercial restrictions, unlike Flux.1 [dev]
- 4-step sampling makes it cheap to run at scale
- Same architecture family as Flux dev/pro, so workflows transfer
- Excellent prompt adherence for an open model
Cons
- Marginally lower quality than flux-dev at high step counts
- 12B parameters — still needs ~16 GB VRAM in FP16
What's actually free?
Apache 2.0 — fully commercial-friendly. The free-as-in-freedom Flux.
✓ Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
Alternatives
Stable Diffusion XL
The workhorse open-weight image model.
Open Source 6–12 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 6 GB
- GPU class
- Mid 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