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Nano Banana

The most recommended of 22 image generation models

Recommended for precise image edits that keep the rest of the scene intact and for legible in-image text, though it still slips on counts, complex scenes, and consistency.

Recommended for precise image edits that keep the rest of the scene intact and for legible in-image text, though it still slips on counts, complex scenes, and consistency.

424 people gave an opinion

recommend it
265
criticize it
159
approval share
63%
Each figure is 5 people. RecommendsCriticizes

Recommended in 12 of 13 months

  1. November 2025: recommended
  2. December 2025: recommended
  3. January 2026: recommended
  4. February 2026: recommended
  5. March 2026: recommended
  6. April 2026: recommended
  7. May 2026: recommended
  8. June 2026: recommended
  9. July 2026: recommended
  10. August 2026: recommended
  11. September 2026: recommended
  12. October 2026: recommended
  13. November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)

Owned for 6 months

Median of the 5 owners who said how long they have had it.

Each square is one year.

Why it doesn’t carry the badge

  • 265 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
  • 1.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
  • Recommended in 12 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

  • Precise edits preserve the scene

    “I'm deeply impressed, especially with the "replace window by mirror". It did not only do the window thing right, it also changed the illumination of the whole room while keeping all the other details unchanged.”

    Comment from 26 Feb 2026 in “Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model”

    “for good edit models (such as Nano Banana Pro) you can annotate the image, and it'll only edit one part, keeping the rest almost entirely consistent”

    Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: isometric.nyc – giant isometric pixel art map of NYC”

    “Being able to try out multiple paint colors in seconds, or add real furniture or wall decor from Ikea, or move objects around instantly”

    Comment from 26 Feb 2026 in “Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model”
  • Accurate, legible text rendering

    “Solves major AI image generation problems: accurate in-image text rendering, character consistency across generations, and fast iteration”

    Comment from 27 Feb 2026 in “Nano Banana 2 – Google's Free 4K AI Image Generator”

    “I figured that if you write the text in Google docs and share the screenshot with banana it will not make any spelling mistake.”

    Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana can be prompt engineered for nuanced AI image generation”

    “something about how nano banana pro handles text and tons of detail so coherently really sparks a childlike sense of delight”

    Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”
  • Replaces designers for real work

    “Nano Banana has been the only model I’ve really loved. As a small businesses who makes products, it’s been a game changer on the marketing side.”

    Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

    “I'm sitting here with Nano Banana Pro creating infographics, and it's doing as good of a job as my human designer”

    Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “OpenAI are quietly adopting skills, now available in ChatGPT and Codex CLI”

    “These turned out great, and she decided to ditch the designer and use the designs created by nano banana.”

    Comment from 27 Feb 2026 in “Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model”
  • Consistent characters across images

    “Solves major AI image generation problems: accurate in-image text rendering, character consistency across generations, and fast iteration”

    Comment from 27 Feb 2026 in “Nano Banana 2 – Google's Free 4K AI Image Generator”

    “Nano Banana makes it easy to create character and location consistent shots that adhere to film language and the rules of storytelling.”

    Comment from 22 Nov 2025 in “Agent design is still hard”

    “The new model is dramatically better - I'm asking for an image in comic book style, prompted with some images of him.”

    Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

What people warn about

Each mark is one comment

  • Fails on counts and complex scenes

    “I was surprised to see NBP able to do that (however, it seems to only work with fewer pieces, after a certain amount it makes mistakes or even generates a completely wrong image)”

    Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “GPT Image 1.5”

    “Much better than previous attempts. Still has an extra lane with the cars on the right cutting off the cars in the middle.”

    Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

    “one of my goto bench marks is a "historical piano" - meaning the naturals are black and the sharps/flats are white”

    Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”
  • Inconsistent quality and identity drift

    “No, that simply is not true. If you actually compare the before and after you can see it still regenerates all the details on the "unchanged" aspects.”

    Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana can be prompt engineered for nuanced AI image generation”

    “Image quality seems to vary wildly; the first image I tried looked really good but then I tried to refresh a few times and it kept getting worse.”

    Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

    “at least in terms of maintaining consistency between input and output for Asian faces, it has even regressed”

    Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”
  • Overly polished, glowing style

    “Googles Nano Banana generation is particularly susceptible to generating that cozy glow kind of style than many gravitate to”

    Comment from 21 Aug 2026 in “People prefer A.I. art because people prefer bad art (2024)”

    “I can't seem to prompt NB to get similar results”

    Comment from 27 Feb 2026 in “Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model”
  • Confusing access and paywalls

    “When you select the "Create images" tool, it doesn't tell you it's using Nano Banana Pro until it actually starts generating the image.”

    Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

    “I can generate a Banana 2 image in gemini interface but on aistudio it says I need to pay for an upgrade (which I can't).”

    Comment from 1 Jul 2026 in “Nano Banana 2 Lite”

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.

Nano Banana compared with 4 alternatives
ProductRecommendCriticizeApprovalMonthsOwnedBadge
Nano BananaThis page26515963%126 mo5 owners—
gpt-image-1797950%12——
FLUX.2665156%10——
gpt-image-2632671%8—Approved
Qwen-Image473855%10——
See all 22 image generation models, ranked

What people said

40 of the 596 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.

“Googles Nano Banana generation is particularly susceptible to generating that cozy glow kind of style than many gravitate to”

CriticizesComment from 21 Aug 2026 in “People prefer A.I. art because people prefer bad art (2024)”

“It seems like the model does a better job of instruction compliance when you annotate on the image itself rather than provide text.”

RecommendsComment from 4 Aug 2026 in “AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog”

“I can generate a Banana 2 image in gemini interface but on aistudio it says I need to pay for an upgrade (which I can't).”

MixedComment from 1 Jul 2026 in “Nano Banana 2 Lite”

“Don't sleep on NB2/NB Pro either, they're surprisingly decent at taking a few screenshots and incorporating them into a showcase image.”

RecommendsComment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Run this Claude skill in your repo to make upload ready app store screenshots”

“Google has better AI models (Gemini, Nanobanana) and they've integrated them successfully into way more products than Meta has.”

RecommendsComment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Meta Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest is being discontinued”

“the rim can not change number of spokes or the like (that's what latest gen models like Nano Banana v2 still do)”

CriticizesComment from 4 Mar 2026 in “We Built a Video Rendering Engine by Lying to the Browser About What Time It Is”

“Solves major AI image generation problems: accurate in-image text rendering, character consistency across generations, and fast iteration”

RecommendsComment from 27 Feb 2026 in “Nano Banana 2 – Google's Free 4K AI Image Generator”

“These turned out great, and she decided to ditch the designer and use the designs created by nano banana.”

RecommendsComment from 27 Feb 2026 in “Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model”

“many of the latest AI image models (NB and NB2 included), they feel almost too polished, calculated, and rigid”

CriticizesComment from 27 Feb 2026 in “Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model”

“I can't seem to prompt NB to get similar results”

CriticizesComment from 27 Feb 2026 in “Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model”

“the multimodal model actually altered the overall lighting in the room by eliminating all the reflections”

RecommendsComment from 26 Feb 2026 in “Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model”

“I'm deeply impressed, especially with the "replace window by mirror". It did not only do the window thing right, it also changed the illumination of the whole room while keeping all the other details unchanged.”

RecommendsComment from 26 Feb 2026 in “Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model”

“Being able to try out multiple paint colors in seconds, or add real furniture or wall decor from Ikea, or move objects around instantly”

RecommendsComment from 26 Feb 2026 in “Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model”

“for good edit models (such as Nano Banana Pro) you can annotate the image, and it'll only edit one part, keeping the rest almost entirely consistent”

RecommendsComment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: isometric.nyc – giant isometric pixel art map of NYC”

“Gemini 3 pro image handles product geometry and details (such as text rendering) significantly better than other models”

RecommendsComment from 19 Jan 2026 in “I built a proper UI for e-com product image generation (chat doesn't scale)”

“Transform your creative visions into stunning AI-generated artwork with identity-consistent edits, multi-image blending, and precise control.”

RecommendsComment from 16 Jan 2026 on Hacker News

“Nano banana was better than any tool I found when I used AI to come up with landscaping visualizations.”

RecommendsComment from 15 Jan 2026 in “Simpler than Photoshop but for free AI Landscaping”

“easy-to-use AI image generator designed for creators, designers, and anyone who wants to turn ideas into visuals instantly”

RecommendsComment from 19 Dec 2025 on Hacker News

“I was surprised to see NBP able to do that (however, it seems to only work with fewer pieces, after a certain amount it makes mistakes or even generates a completely wrong image)”

MixedComment from 17 Dec 2025 in “GPT Image 1.5”

“NB Pro successfully assembled a jigsaw puzzle it had never seen before, generated semi-accurate 3D topographical extrapolations”

RecommendsComment from 16 Dec 2025 in “GPT Image 1.5”

“I'm sitting here with Nano Banana Pro creating infographics, and it's doing as good of a job as my human designer”

RecommendsComment from 13 Dec 2025 in “OpenAI are quietly adopting skills, now available in ChatGPT and Codex CLI”

“Image editing is now working so well, last week i used nano banana instead of doing anything in photoshop.”

RecommendsComment from 2 Dec 2025 in “It’s been a very hard year”

“Now we have nano Bananan Pro and Gemini 3.”

MixedComment from 2 Dec 2025 in “It’s been a very hard year”

“something about how nano banana pro handles text and tons of detail so coherently really sparks a childlike sense of delight”

RecommendsComment from 26 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

“Nano Banana makes it easy to create character and location consistent shots that adhere to film language and the rules of storytelling.”

RecommendsComment from 22 Nov 2025 in “Agent design is still hard”

“if you ask it to generate eight or 10 frames of a sprite performing a particular action from scratch it gets it pretty spot on”

RecommendsComment from 21 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

“When you select the "Create images" tool, it doesn't tell you it's using Nano Banana Pro until it actually starts generating the image.”

CriticizesComment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

“at least in terms of maintaining consistency between input and output for Asian faces, it has even regressed”

CriticizesComment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

“The new model is dramatically better - I'm asking for an image in comic book style, prompted with some images of him.”

RecommendsComment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

“one of my goto bench marks is a "historical piano" - meaning the naturals are black and the sharps/flats are white”

CriticizesComment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

“Even so, this is a real advancement. It's impressive to see existing techniques combined to meaningfully improve on SOTA image generation.”

RecommendsComment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

“Nano Banana Pro is the best model for creating images with correctly rendered and legible text directly in the image”

RecommendsComment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

“Nano Banana has been the only model I’ve really loved. As a small businesses who makes products, it’s been a game changer on the marketing side.”

RecommendsComment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

“Image quality seems to vary wildly; the first image I tried looked really good but then I tried to refresh a few times and it kept getting worse.”

MixedComment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

“Much better than previous attempts. Still has an extra lane with the cars on the right cutting off the cars in the middle.”

MixedComment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana Pro”

“try asking Nano Banana to do something simpler, like "draw a picture of 13 circles." It likely will not work.”

CriticizesComment from 14 Nov 2025 in “AI World Clocks”

“Once errors occur you've basically introduced a poison pill which will continuously make things to haywire”

CriticizesComment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana can be prompt engineered for nuanced AI image generation”

“Nano Banana is different and much better at edits without changing texture/lighting/sharpness/color balance”

RecommendsComment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana can be prompt engineered for nuanced AI image generation”

“I figured that if you write the text in Google docs and share the screenshot with banana it will not make any spelling mistake.”

RecommendsComment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana can be prompt engineered for nuanced AI image generation”

“No, that simply is not true. If you actually compare the before and after you can see it still regenerates all the details on the "unchanged" aspects.”

CriticizesComment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Nano Banana can be prompt engineered for nuanced AI image generation”

Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.