FLUX by Black Forest Labs vs Hunyuan (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, FLUX by Black Forest Labs grades higher than Hunyuan: 2.0 against 1.4 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 17, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 · graded Oct 17, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
FLUX by Black Forest Labs grades higher on the free plan and features. They get the same grade on value for money, ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
FLUX by Black Forest Labs
FLUX image and video models, paid per use via API and playground
Free plan
Which one is for you
Pick FLUX by Black Forest Labs if
- Fits if you make the odd image and would rather pay per picture than monthly
- Works for developers building image or video generation into their own product
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want an app with styles, projects and a gallery, not a playground
- Not for you if you need a known monthly bill, since you pay per image and $0.17 a second for HD video
- Pricey if you make hundreds of FLUX 3 images a month, as every one is charged
- Watch out: FLUX.2 [klein] 9B, FLUX.2 [dev] and FLUX.1 [dev] weights are non-commercial, and license prices aren't published
- Skip it if you want a phone app, integrations or a student discount, as the listing shows none
Pick Hunyuan if
- Fits if you follow Tencent's model releases and read Chinese
- Makes sense if you want to look at the open-source models rather than make pictures
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want an image generator you can sign up for today
- Not for you if you need English documentation, because the portal is Chinese
- Watch out: Hy Image3.5 is labelled preview and no prices are shown
- Watch out: this is a research portal with several models, not a single image product
How we grade them
| 2.0GPAFLUX by Black Forest LabsFair | 1.4GPAHunyuanWeak | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CNo subscription, so no monthly plan to set against this category. You prepay credits at $0.01 each: a FLUX 3 image costs $0.048 and a Klein one $0.009, so $10 makes about 200 FLUX 3 images. Light use beats any plan here, heavy use won't. | CThe portal publishes no price, so it sits in the middle by default. |
| Free plan and trial | CThe FLUX.2 [klein] 4B weights are free under Apache 2.0, commercial use included, but only if you can run them on your own hardware. The hosted playground and API have no free credits on record. | FThe portal records no free tier or trial. |
| Features | CFLUX 3 makes images with accurate text and clips up to 20 seconds with sound, and FLUX Tools erase, outpaint and deblur. For a person, though, the listing shows a playground over an API, with no styles, projects or gallery around it. | DA model family portal rather than an image app. Hy Image3.5 is a preview, alongside language, vision and speech models. |
| Ease of use | CNo app rating on record. The playground needs no code, but you're buying credits, picking models and resolutions and paying per image, which is a developer's way of working. | CThe page is in Chinese with a prompt to switch to an international site, and access terms weren't confirmed. |
| Platforms and integrations | CA web playground and an API, plus open weights to run on your own machine. No phone app and no integrations in the listing. | CA web portal. It lists open-source models and Tencent's own products, but nothing else to connect to. |
| Best for | pay-per-image FLUX models and open weights | a look at Tencent's models, not an app for making images |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: FLUX by Black Forest Labs and Hunyuan. How we grade
Where they differ
- FLUX by Black Forest Labs is self-hostable, according to its own site.
- FLUX by Black Forest Labs also covers video generation.
- Hunyuan also covers transcription and chat assistant.
In commonWebAI featuresImage generation
At a glance
| FLUX by Black Forest Labs | Hunyuan | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Paid |
| Starts at | Not published | Not published |
| Free plan | The FLUX.2 [klein] 4B weights are free to download and run yourself under Apache 2.0, commercial use included. The hosted playground and API need bought credits. | None |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Black Forest Labs | Tencent |
| Price read from | bfl.ai | Not confirmed |
| Checked | Oct 17, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
FLUX by Black Forest Labs
- Hosted use is pay as you go: FLUX 3 Image costs $0.048 per 1K image, Klein $0.009, and FLUX 3 video $0.17 a second at HD.
- There is no subscription for the playground or API, and no published monthly price for any self-hosting license.
- FLUX.2 [klein] 9B, FLUX.2 [dev] and FLUX.1 [dev] weights are non-commercial; running them commercially needs a paid license.
- There is no student discount, and volume discounts on API use are arranged through sales.
Hunyuan
- The portal is in Chinese, with a prompt to switch to an international site, so English documentation was not read.
- No prices are shown on the portal; the image model is labelled preview and access terms were not confirmed.
- This is a model family and research portal, not a single image app; the image model is one of several.
Key features
FLUX by Black Forest Labs
- FLUX 3 image and video
- One model family covers images with accurate text rendering and video clips of up to 20 seconds with optional generated speech, effects and ambience.
- Image editing tools
- FLUX.2 models edit images from a prompt, and FLUX Tools add outpainting, object erasing and deblurring.
- Browser playground
- Try the models without code in the playground, which charges the same credit prices as the API.
- API with prepaid credits
- Credits cost $0.01 each, are shared across an organization's projects, do not expire, and can be topped up automatically.
- Open weights
- Models such as FLUX 3 Image Klein and FLUX.2 [klein] can be downloaded from Hugging Face and GitHub and fine-tuned on your own hardware.
Hunyuan
- Hy Image3.5 preview
- A visual generation model in preview that Tencent describes as strong at rendering text, varied styles and consistent layouts.
- Hy3 language model
- A mixture-of-experts language model of 295B total and 21B active parameters, with a 256K context window and three thinking modes.
- Hy Vision 2.0
- A vision-language model for understanding images, built on Tencent's HY-2.0 language model and aimed at image-to-text tasks.
- Hy ASR 3.0 preview
- A speech recognition model built on Hy3 that Tencent says covers dialects and varied settings.
- Open-source models and products
- The portal links Tencent's open-source models and consumer products such as WorkBuddy, Yuanbao and ima.
Plans
FLUX by Black Forest Labs
FLUX.2 [klein] 4B open weights$0
Download from Hugging Face and host it yourself under Apache 2.0, with free commercial use.
Builder licenseCustom
Self-serve monthly license bought in the dashboard; price not published. 10K images a month, 1 domain, 10 users.
Platform licenseCustom
For products offering FLUX to their own users: 100K images a month on 1 domain, sold through sales.
Professional licenseCustom
For agencies making images for named clients: 100K images a month, first 3 clients included, sold through sales.
EnterpriseCustom
All models and new releases, custom volume, volume discounts and an SLA, with combined API and weights pricing.
Hunyuan
Pricing could not be confirmed. See hunyuan.tencent.com.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, FLUX by Black Forest Labs or Hunyuan?
As of Nov 12, 2026, FLUX by Black Forest Labs publishes no starting price, and Hunyuan has no price we could confirm.
Which has a free plan, FLUX by Black Forest Labs or Hunyuan?
As of Nov 12, 2026, only FLUX by Black Forest Labs has a free plan. Hunyuan does not.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.