What is Flux?
Flux, also known as FLUX.1, is an image generation model based on textual descriptions, developed by Black Forest Labs through practical research in the field of artificial intelligence. The company was founded in 2024 in Freiburg, Germany, by former Stability AI employees: Robin Rombach, Andreas Blattmann, and Patrick Esser. They all previously participated in projects related to image generation using AI technologies at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich under the guidance of Professor Björn Ommer.
The establishment of Black Forest Labs was made possible through investments from several well-known venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, including Andreessen Horowitz, Brendan Iribe, Michael Ovitz, Garry Tan, and Vladlen Koltun, providing a seed capital of 31 million USD. The first major application of Flux was its integration into Grok, a chatbot by xAI, through the social network X (formerly Twitter) in August 2024. Later, in December 2024, Grok switched from the Flux model to its own, named Aurora.
The Flux model family is based on a hybrid architecture combining multimodal and parallel diffusion transformer blocks, scaled up to 12 billion parameters. They are available in three variants: Schnell, distributed as open-source, and Dev with source code for non-commercial use. Users retain rights to images created with Flux.
Image Quality of Flux
According to conducted tests, Flux Dev and Flux Schnell have significantly approached photorealism, comparable to Midjourney 6 and DALL-E 3. However, realistic images, including controversial scenes and politically charged content, have sparked numerous discussions about the ethical aspects of applying such technologies. Suspicions of using large volumes of unauthorized data collected from the internet have added to the debate surrounding the legal and ethical aspects of training the model.
Despite certain criticism, Flux remains one of the leading models in the field of image generation, opening new horizons for AI technologies.
What is Flux Schnell?
Flux Schnell stands out for its speed, providing quick results with less complex details.
What is Flux Dev?
Flux Dev ensures a balance, offering more detail than Schnell while maintaining decent speed.
