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DATASHEET // FLUX-1-SCHNELL

Flux.1 Schnell

Black Forest Labs' 4-step distilled Flux.

OPEN SOURCE8–16 GB VRAMRuns locally
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-FreeHobbyist-OKAPIPlugin

Requires: ComfyUI, Stable Diffusion WebUI Forge, AUTOMATIC1111 (stable-diffusion-webui)

Visit Flux.1 SchnellUPDATED 2026-04-02 · DIRECT LINK
github.com/black-forest-labs/flux
Flux.1 Schnell — preview image

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS //

Runs locally · Mid GPU (12 GB)

8–16 GB VRAM
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+.

[ EDITORIAL PICK ]

Why we recommend Flux.1 Schnell

DERIVED FROM METADATA — NOT SPONSORED
  • Open source

    Source is public — you can audit it, fork it, and you'll never lose access to your workflows if Flux.1 Schnell the company changes direction.

  • Runs on 8 GB

    Comfortable on a mid-range consumer card — no need to remortgage for an A100.

  • Apple Silicon

    Native Metal / MPS support — runs on M-series Macs without CUDA gymnastics.

  • Top-tier pick

    Power-user score 88/100 — consistently rated highly by people who use this every day, not just benchmark chasers.

[ EVIDENCE NOTE ]

Documentation-led datasheet

This page summarizes upstream documentation, release information, and editorially reviewed catalogue fields. It is not presented as a hands-on benchmark. Verify changing requirements at the official project; report stale data through our corrections channel.

VRAM guide →

AT-A-GLANCE SIGNALS //

DERIVED FROM THIS PAGE'S DATA
  • Install difficulty
    Plugin

    Drops into comfyui — assuming the host is already set up.

  • Hardware comfort
    Mainstream

    Needs 8 GB minimum — RTX 3060 12GB or 4070 territory.

  • Ecosystem
    Strong devkit

    Open-source AND ships an API — easy to integrate, possible to host yourself.

  • Verification
    Ageing

    105 days since the last catalogue refresh — flagged for re-verification.

[ COMMUNITY GUIDES & WORKFLOWS ]

Tutorials & deep-dives for Flux.1 Schnell

Hand-picked from YouTube, Reddit, GitHub, and the wider web. Each link goes straight to the source — we don't intercept or rewrite anything.

[ MORE IN THIS NICHE ]

Other heavy image generation tools we rate

Three picks across different tradeoffs — so you don't end up with three near-clones of Flux.1 Schnell.

LIGHTEST HARDWARE //

FaceFusion

The most active open face-swap toolkit.

OPEN SOURCE2–8 GB VRAM
BEST FREE OPTION //

ComfyUI

The nodal workflow engine for serious diffusion.

OPEN SOURCE6–16 GB VRAM
TOP QUALITY //

FLUX.1 [dev]

12B parameter open-weight diffusion model.

OPEN SOURCE8–24 GB VRAM

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

FLUX.1 [dev]

12B parameter open-weight diffusion model.

OPEN SOURCE8–24 GB VRAM
VRAM fit8–24 GB