Flux vs Krea vs Magnific vs Midjourney
A side-by-side look at Flux, Krea, Magnific and Midjourney for filmmakers: what each one can do, what it costs, and where they actually differ.
-
Image model family for accurate text and photoreal stills, plus FLUX 3 video with native audio
- Price
- Pay per image on the API, from $0.014 (FLUX.2 klein 4B). Open weights are free for non-commercial use; commercial open-weights licences are quoted by sales.
- Learning
- Moderate
- Best for
- Key art and concept frames where legible text in the image matters
-
Multi-model AI canvas, agent and API for images, video and upscaling
- Price
- Basic $9/mo; Pro $35/mo ($21 yearly); Business $200/mo ($160 yearly); see the vendor's pricing page for other plans
- Learning
- Moderate
- Best for
- Pre-visualization: moodboards, look development and concept stills for a shoot
-
AI upscaler for archive, low-res and concept footage, part of the Magnific platform
- Price
- From €16/mo excl. VAT (€12/mo billed yearly); no free tier listed
- Learning
- Moderate
- Best for
- Upscaling concept art and matte paintings to a 4K deliverable
-
AI image generator for concept art, previs, boards and client-safe stills, with private Stealth mode
- Price
- From $10/mo ($8/mo billed annually); 20% off on annual plans
- Learning
- Easy
- Best for
- Concept art, key art and look development for features and series
The short version
Where they differ
- Midjourney is the only one without public API.
All 4 offer: text to image, upscaling.
Feature by feature
Flux vs Krea vs Magnific vs Midjourney: capabilities
| Flux | Krea | Magnific | Midjourney | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Pay per image on the API, from $0.014 (FLUX.2 klein 4B). Open weights are free for non-commercial use; commercial open-weights licences are quoted by sales. | Basic $9/mo; Pro $35/mo ($21 yearly); Business $200/mo ($160 yearly); see the vendor's pricing page for other plans | From €16/mo excl. VAT (€12/mo billed yearly); no free tier listed | From $10/mo ($8/mo billed annually); 20% off on annual plans |
| Infinite canvas | No | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| Node / flow builder | No | Yes | Partial | No |
| AI agent | No | Yes | Not confirmed | No |
| Chat assistant | No | Yes | Not confirmed | No |
| Team collaboration | Not confirmed | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Text to image | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Image editing | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes |
| Text to video | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed |
| Image to video | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed | Yes |
| Video to video | Partial | Partial | Not confirmed | No |
| Native audio in video | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed |
| Lip-sync | Yes | Not confirmed | Not confirmed | No |
| Voice / TTS | Partial | Yes | Yes | No |
| Music & SFX | Partial | Yes | Not confirmed | No |
| Upscaling | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Character consistency | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial |
| Camera control | Partial | Not confirmed | Not confirmed | Not confirmed |
| Custom training | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed | Partial |
| Third-party models | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Public API | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| MCP server | Yes | Not confirmed | Yes | No |
| Desktop / local | Yes | Not confirmed | No | No |
| Open source | Partial | Partial | No | No |
| Free tier | Partial | Yes | Not confirmed | No |
| Commercial use | Partial | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Each column comes from that tool's own researched page. "Not confirmed" means the vendor doesn't say.
Plans
Pricing compared
Flux
| Open weights, non-commercial | Freeone-time download |
|---|---|
| API pay-as-you-go | From $0.014 per imagepay-per-image |
| Builder (open-weights licence) | Contact saleslicence |
| Platform (open-weights licence) | Contact saleslicence |
| Professional (open-weights licence) | Contact saleslicence |
| Enterprise | Contact salescustom |
Krea
| Free | $0monthly |
|---|---|
| Basic | $9monthly or yearly |
| Pro | $35 list / $21 yearlymonthly or yearly |
| Business | $200 list / $160 yearlymonthly or yearly |
| Enterprise | Customcustom |
Magnific
| Premium | €16monthly |
|---|---|
| Premium+ | €36monthly |
| Pro Starter | €88monthly |
Midjourney
| Basic | $10monthly ($8/mo billed annually) |
|---|---|
| Standard | $30monthly ($24/mo billed annually) |
| Pro | $60monthly ($48/mo billed annually) |
| Mega | $120monthly ($96/mo billed annually) |
The verdict
Which one should you pick?
Flux
Pick it for
- Key art and concept frames where legible text in the image matters
- Environment plates and set-design variations at 2K or 4K, priced per megapixel
- Studios that want open weights and custom LoRAs running locally in ComfyUI
Stands out
- Open weights: FLUX.2 [dev] and the klein models can be downloaded, self-hosted and fine-tuned, with LoRA rights on the licensed tiers. Midjourney is closed.
- Pay per image with no subscription: FLUX.2 [klein] 4B from $0.014 per image, FLUX.2 [pro] from $0.03. Midjourney and Adobe Firefly sell monthly plans.
Watch out
- Video is new. FLUX 3 Video availability and FLUX 3 Image early access have been described differently across sources, and video pricing is not published
- Open-weights models are non-commercial by default, and commercial use needs a licence quoted by sales
Krea
Pick it for
- Pre-visualization: moodboards, look development and concept stills for a shoot
- Producers who want Seedance, Nano Banana and ChatGPT Image in one account instead of three subscriptions
- Motion designers generating short hero clips with a reference image and a generated soundtrack
Stands out
- One compute balance covers Krea's own models plus third-party image and video models (Seedance 2.5, Nano Banana Pro, ChatGPT Image 2, Kling, Topaz), so you do not need a separate subscription per model.
- Canvas, node workflows and the Krea Agent sit in the same product, so a brief can be run as a chat or built as a visual graph.
Watch out
- Compute units are opaque: per-model costs are not published, so budgeting video is guesswork
- Native video is capped at 720p for Seedance 2.5; 1080p and 4K need Seedance 2.0
Magnific
Pick it for
- Upscaling concept art and matte paintings to a 4K deliverable
- Lifting AI-generated stills to a larger size before a video pass
- Making archive stills usable at title-card or poster size
Stands out
- Creative and Precision modes in one tool: Creative invents texture and skin detail, Precision keeps text, logos and UI intact
- Upscales images from 2x to 16x and video to 1K, 2K or 4K, in the same subscription as generation models
Watch out
- No free tier on the pricing page; the cheapest paid plan is €16/month excl. VAT
- Upscale cost is in credits and not published per image or clip, which makes budgeting hard
Midjourney
Pick it for
- Concept art, key art and look development for features and series
- Storyboard frames and mood boards where the look matters more than shot control
- Client-confidential previs on Pro or Mega using Stealth mode
Stands out
- Stealth mode on Pro and Mega keeps confidential client and NDA work out of the public gallery, which the tools above do not offer on an equal basis.
- Consistent, art-directed default look across prompts with the V8.2 personalization profile, which is trained on your ratings rather than a LoRA you build.
Watch out
- No free trial
- Video is still the 2025 V1 image-to-video model, with no text-to-video or audio
Each column comes from that tool's own researched page, checked against vendor pricing and changelog pages (oldest check: ). Sources are listed on each tool's page.
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