Distilled version of Black Forest Labs' FLUX.2 [dev] outperforming it at a cheaper price. Developed by fal.ai.
Settled by community votes across 2 shared challenges, with an AI judge weighing in on each.
FLUX.2 [dev] Turbo
27.4
arena score
#4 of 44 in Text-to-Image
Skill signature
Not enough comparable category data
The chart appears once both models have ratings across at least three shared arena categories.
Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium
15.7
arena score
#41 of 44 in Text-to-Image
Vote tally
Where the votes landed
FLUX.2 [dev] Turbo
0%
win rate
Ties
0%
Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium
0%
win rate
Shared challenges
2
Challenge by challenge
The strongest take from each model on every shared challenge, with the AI judge's read.
The Reversed Rodeo
Text-to-Image“Horse riding astronaut in space — horse on top, not vice versa. Surreal, highly detailed, cinematic.”
FLUX.2 [dev] Turbo
Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium
AI Judge Analysis
FLUX.2 [dev] Turbo
- + Excellent cinematic lighting and texture details on the spacesuit and horse fur.
- + High resolution with a beautiful, complex space background.
- + Dynamic and realistic composition.
- − Failed the negative constraint: the astronaut is on top of the horse, not vice versa.
Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium
- + Clean, high-contrast imagery.
- + Good interpretation of the 'space' environment.
- − Failed the negative constraint: the astronaut is on top of the horse.
- − Significant anatomical errors with the horse's legs and the astronaut's lower body (extra leg visible).
- − Lower visual complexity compared to the other model.
Verdict: Both models failed the specific prompt instruction to place the horse on top of the astronaut, defaulting to the standard 'astronaut riding horse' trope. FLUX.2 [dev] Turbo is the clear winner as it produced a much higher quality, cinematic image with realistic textures, whereas Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium suffered from major anatomical defects and a less polished aesthetic.
The Halloween Invitation
Text-to-Image“Vintage gothic Halloween party invitation. Dark parchment poster, spooky border with webs and thorns, central glowing jack-o-lantern, bats, twisted trees, moody night sky. Add elegant gothic title text saying "Halloween Party Invitation", a small scroll banner saying "You are invited to a night of frights", and event details at the bottom: Date: 30.10.2026 Time: 7pm Location: The Arches, NYC Spooky but polished, cinematic lighting, square format.”
FLUX.2 [dev] Turbo
Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium
AI Judge Analysis
FLUX.2 [dev] Turbo
- + Excellent typography with perfect spelling of all specific phrases.
- + Highly detailed gothic assets including the thorn border and central jack-o-lantern.
- + Atmospheric cinematic lighting that blends elements cohesively.
- − The parchment background is quite dark, which may reduce legibility for some.
Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium
- + Successfully captures the vintage parchment paper aesthetic.
- + Included multiple jack-o-lanterns and twisted tree silhouettes.
- − Significant text rendering errors and misspellings throughout.
- − The composition feels less polished with erratic layout choices.
- − Failed to create a central jack-o-lantern as requested.
Verdict: FLUX.2 [dev] Turbo followed the prompt with high precision, delivering perfectly rendered text and a professional-grade composition. In contrast, Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium struggled with the specific text requirements and the centered arrangement, resulting in a less coherent final image.
Next steps
Explore each model
Stability AI's 2.5-billion parameter Multimodal Diffusion Transformer with improvements (MMDiT-X) text-to-image model optimized for consumer hardware, featuring improved image quality, typography, and complex prompt understanding