Ideogram
Shares rank 18 of 22 image generation models by recommenders
Praised for accurate text rendering and as a near-top open-weights text-to-image model; critics note slow speed, a cumbersome JSON input format and a restrictive license.
Praised for accurate text rendering and as a near-top open-weights text-to-image model; critics note slow speed, a cumbersome JSON input format and a restrictive license.
9 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 89%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Among the best open-weights text-to-image
“some of the biggest open-weight bangers (Krea 2, Ideogram 4, and the kind of slept-on Boogu-Image 0.1)”
Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “A practical guide to AI image generation, from diffusion to agents” “Ideogram 4 is probably the best option in the open‑weights world right now for text2image purposes”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “Flux 3” “Ideogram 4 probably comes the closest to SOTA models”
Comment from 30 Jun 2026 in “Nano Banana 2 Lite” - Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Qwen-Image-3.0: Rich Content, Authentic Details, Deep Knowledge”
Open weights, locally hostable
“The only locally hostable model that managed to outperform it was Ideogram 4 which is significantly slower”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “Krea 2 Technical Report” “thanks to Ideogram for open weight v4.”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “American AI is locked down and proprietary. It's losing” “Just use Ideogram. Locally.”
Comment from 22 Aug 2026 in “I'm Becoming AI-Blind” Very accurate text rendering in images
“I thought Ideogram or whatever was really good for this particular use, with actual clear text.”
Comment from 20 Sep 2026 in “Qwen Image 2.1” “is very accurate when it comes to text rendering in an image”
Comment from 20 Sep 2026 in “Qwen Image 2.1” Strong results with structured JSON
“how much better Ideogram v4 outputs are when you use the proper structured JSON”
Comment from 2 Oct 2026 in “FLUX 3 Image” “if you’re willing to put in the work, it can produce fantastic results”
Comment from 5 Jun 2026 on Hacker News
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Restrictive non-commercial license limits use
“The latter being less commercially usable without what I would surely assume is a pain in the ass.”
Comment from 30 Jun 2026 in “Nano Banana 2 Lite” “it's got a far more restrictive license and the JSON structured inputs can be a pain to work with”
Comment from 20 Sep 2026 in “Qwen Image 2.1” “moving to their own bespoke, non-commercial licenses”
Comment from 17 Oct 2026 in “FLUX 3 Image Klein” Cumbersome JSON structured inputs
“it's got a far more restrictive license and the JSON structured inputs can be a pain to work with”
Comment from 20 Sep 2026 in “Qwen Image 2.1” “you have to use a relatively cumbersome JSON structure”
Comment from 2 Oct 2026 in “FLUX 3 Image”
Other image generation models people recommend
The four most recommended other image generation models, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nano Banana | 265 | 159 | 63% | 12 | 6 mo5 owners | — |
| gpt-image-1 | 79 | 79 | 50% | 12 | — | — |
| FLUX.2 | 66 | 51 | 56% | 10 | — | — |
| gpt-image-2 | 63 | 26 | 71% | 8 | — | Approved |
| IdeogramThis page | 8 | 1 | 89% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
18 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“some of the biggest open-weight bangers (Krea 2, Ideogram 4, and the kind of slept-on Boogu-Image 0.1)”
“moving to their own bespoke, non-commercial licenses”
“how much better Ideogram v4 outputs are when you use the proper structured JSON”
“you have to use a relatively cumbersome JSON structure”
“released some of the biggest bangers (Krea 2, Ideogram 4”
“is very accurate when it comes to text rendering in an image”
“I thought Ideogram or whatever was really good for this particular use, with actual clear text.”
“it's got a far more restrictive license and the JSON structured inputs can be a pain to work with”
“Just use Ideogram. Locally.”
“Ideogram 4 is probably the best option in the open‑weights world right now for text2image purposes”
“among the best right now for text2image”
“thanks to Ideogram for open weight v4.”
“The latter being less commercially usable without what I would surely assume is a pain in the ass.”
“Ideogram 4 probably comes the closest to SOTA models”
“The only locally hostable model that managed to outperform it was Ideogram 4 which is significantly slower”
“there's been a lot of positive movement in the open-weights space”
“if you’re willing to put in the work, it can produce fantastic results”
“this endpoint is free of charge, but you need a free account to create an api key”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.