#1 GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst
Arena 1425 1418–1431, 17,752 votes · median $0.024 · Arena #1 · #1 among models priced here · also GPT Image 2.5 Flare, GPT Image 2
Best AI image models (Oct 2026)
The best image models for overall use in Oct 2026 are GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst, Nano Banana 2.1, Grok Imagine Image 2.0, ranked by Arena.
#2 Nano Banana 2.1
Arena 1328 1319–1337, 5,310 votes · median $0.037 · Arena #6 · #2 among models priced here · also Nano Banana Pro
#2 Grok Imagine Image 2.0
Arena 1334 1322–1345, 3,113 votes · median $0.080 · Arena #4 · #3 among models priced here · tied with #2 (intervals overlap)
Also consider
| Rank | Model | Arena | Median | Ranks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Seedream 5 Pro | 1255 (1252–1259) | $0.041 | Arena #12 · #4 among priced |
| 5 | Qwen Image 2.1 | 1223 (1216–1230) | $0.040 | Arena #19 · #5 among priced |
| 6 | FLUX 2 Max | 1162 (1159–1166) | $0.070 | Arena #29 · #6 among priced |
How this list is ranked
The highest-scoring text-to-image models that have a public price on the board. Arena text-to-image overall preference. 7 qualified after family collapse. Based on data from Arena (arena.ai). Arena does not endorse this ranking.
Notable models we cannot rank
| Model | Reason |
|---|---|
| Ideogram 2a Turbo | no counted public price |
| Ideogram 3 | no counted public price |
| Qwen Image 3 | no counted public price |
| Seedream V5 Lite | no counted public price |
| Seedream 5.0 Pro | no counted public price |
| Seedream 4.5 | no counted public price |
| Seedream 4 | no counted public price |
| Emu 3.5 Image Edit | no counted public price |
| ERNIE Image | no counted public price |
| ERNIE Image LoRA | no counted public price |
| ERNIE Image LoRA Turbo | no counted public price |
| ERNIE Image Turbo | no counted public price |