ComparisonsWhat Are the Best Qwen Image Alternatives for Generation and Editing?
Makernice Team · ·
Prices as of November 12, 2026 (price list v15).
Key takeaways
- Qwen3 Image generates at 1k and 2k in 8 aspect ratios and edits with up to 3 reference images; Qwen3 Pro Image has the same limits.
- For edits that combine many images, MiniMax H3-Image takes up to 16, Seedream 5.0 14, and Seedream 5.5 and Seedream 5.0 Pro 10 each.
- MiniMax H3-Image offers 13 text-to-image aspect ratios, the widest choice among Makernice image models; Seedream 5.0 renders at 2k only.
- Platforms that print a plain US-dollar per-image price for Qwen3 Image are listed below with the tiers and check date; the amounts are on the Qwen3 Image model page.
Qwen Image alternatives on Makernice are Qwen3 Pro Image from the same vendor, ByteDance's Seedream 5.5, Seedream 5.0 Pro and Seedream 5.0, and MiniMax H3-Image, all compared here against Qwen3 Image. If you need a Qwen Image Edit alternative that takes more than 3 input images, every model in this list except Qwen3 Pro Image does. Qwen3 Image itself is also sold by other platforms, listed further down.
What Qwen3 Image covers on Makernice
Alibaba's Qwen3 Image runs text-to-image and image edit at 1k or 2k, in 1:1, 3:2, 2:3, 4:3, 3:4, 16:9, 9:16, 21:9. An edit takes up to 3 reference images. Each image is priced on its own, with one rate for text-to-image and another for edits: $0.0236 and $0.0329 per image at 1k on price list v15 (November 12, 2026).
How do Qwen Image alternatives compare on edit references and ratios?
Qwen Image alternatives differ most in how many reference images an edit accepts, from 3 on Qwen3 Image up to 16 on MiniMax H3-Image, and in how many text-to-image aspect ratios they offer. The table lists both, with the per-image price at each tier.
| Model | Resolutions | Reference images | Text-to-image ratios | Makernice 1k per image | Makernice 2k per image |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3 Image | 1k, 2k | 3 | 8 | $0.0236 | $0.0236 |
| Qwen3 Pro Image | 1k, 2k | 3 | 8 | $0.0328 | $0.0657 |
| Seedream 5.5 | 1k, 2k | 10 | 8 | $0.0156 | $0.0273 |
| Seedream 5.0 Pro | 1k, 2k | 10 | 7 | $0.0351 | $0.0702 |
| Seedream 5.0 | 2k | 14 | 8 | — | $0.0336 |
| MiniMax H3-Image | 1k, 2k | 16 | 13 | $0.036 | $0.036 |
Text-to-image prices from Makernice price list v15 (November 12, 2026). A dash means the model has no such tier. Edits have their own per-image rate, and some image models add a charge per reference image; each model page shows how its edit price is built.
Looking for a Qwen Image Edit alternative?
A Qwen Image Edit alternative on Makernice mostly means more input images per edit; four of the five models below take more than Qwen3 Image's 3.
- MiniMax H3-Image: up to 16 reference images per edit, and the output follows the reference image's shape, since its edit mode takes no aspect ratio.
- Seedream 5.0: up to 14 references, fixed at 2k, with 8 ratios.
- Seedream 5.5: up to 10 references at 1k or 2k, with 8 ratios.
- Seedream 5.0 Pro: up to 10 references at 1k or 2k, with 7 ratios.
- Qwen3 Pro Image: the same 3-image limit as Qwen3 Image; switch to it for a second Qwen model, not for more inputs.
Qwen3 Image on other platforms
These platforms state a per-image price for Qwen3 Image in US dollars at the tiers listed. Credit-only pricing and limited-time discounts are skipped, so the list is narrower than everywhere the model is offered.
| Platform | Listed US-dollar tiers | Source checked |
|---|---|---|
| APIMart | 1k, 2k | apimart.ai · 2026-11-11 |
| Atlas Cloud | 1k, 2k | atlascloud.ai · 2026-11-11 |
| CometAPI | 1k, 2k | cometapi.com · 2026-11-11 |
| Crun | 2k | crun.ai · 2026-11-11 |
| EvoLink | 1k, 2k | evolink.ai · 2026-11-11 |
| Kie.ai | 1k, 2k | kie.ai · 2026-11-11 |
| MuAPI | 1k, 2k | muapi.ai · 2026-11-11 |
| PoYo | 1k, 2k | poyo.ai · 2026-11-11 |
| WaveSpeedAI | 1k, 2k | wavespeed.ai · 2026-11-11 |
For the per-image amounts by tier, next to Makernice, open the Qwen3 Image price table. Rows without a 1k tier mean that platform prints a dollar price for 2k only.
Is Qwen Image open source, and can you run it locally?
Qwen Image is open source in its earlier releases, but Qwen3 Image, the version Makernice hosts, has no official open-weights release that we could find (checked November 12, 2026). The Qwen team's Hugging Face organization publishes Qwen-Image, Qwen-Image-Edit (including 2509 and 2511), Qwen-Image-2512 and Qwen-Image-Layered under Apache 2.0. Qwen-Image-2.1 uses the Qwen Research License, which allows non-commercial use only. None of those checkpoints is Qwen3 Image or Qwen3 Pro Image.
Makernice runs Qwen3 Image as a hosted API only, so a local setup means one of those older Qwen checkpoints on your own GPU. Among the alternatives above, MiniMax publishes MiniMax H3-Image weights under a community license that excludes the EU, the UK, South Korea and the US (checked November 12, 2026).
Why you might stay with Qwen3 Image
Stay if your edits use 3 or fewer images and the 8 Qwen ratios cover your layouts, including 21:9 and 3:2. Stay too if your prompts are tuned to Qwen's output.
