Hunyuan vs Qwen-Image (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Qwen-Image grades higher than Hunyuan: 2.2 against 1.4 out of 4.0.
Checked Nov 12, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA
Hunyuan grades higher on ease of use. Qwen-Image grades higher on the free plan, features and platforms. They get the same grade on value for money.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Which one is for you
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
Pick Qwen-Image if
- Fits if you have a GPU and want to run an image model yourself
- Works for developers who want text drawn inside pictures
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you have no GPU, since local use needs a capable one
- Skip it if you do not code, as the quick start is Python with Diffusers and PyTorch
- Watch out: the README says the official demo is heavily used and points to third-party hosts
- Watch out: the 2.0 model is announced there but its weights are not confirmed as open
How we grade them
| 1.4GPAHunyuanWeak | 2.2GPAQwen-ImageFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CThe portal publishes no price, so it sits in the middle by default. | CThe weights are free, but you supply the hardware. Self-hosting needs a capable GPU, so it is not free in the way a download-and-run program is. |
| Free plan and trial | FThe portal records no free tier or trial. | BThe weights are free to download under Apache-2.0 with no cap. The cost is your own GPU, and hosted limits were not readable. |
| Features | DA model family portal rather than an image app. Hy Image3.5 is a preview, alongside language, vision and speech models. | CText rendering, image editing and tool support, with 2K output in 2.0. The 2.0 weights are not confirmed as open in the README. |
| Ease of use | CThe page is in Chinese with a prompt to switch to an international site, and access terms weren't confirmed. | DNo store rating on record. The quick start uses Diffusers and PyTorch, which means Python and a GPU. |
| Platforms and integrations | CA web portal. It lists open-source models and Tencent's own products, but nothing else to connect to. | BA model rather than an app, with ComfyUI, Hugging Face, ModelScope, Diffusers, vLLM-Omni and SGLang listed. |
| Best for | a look at Tencent's models, not an app for making images | open-weights image model for text and editing |
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: Hunyuan and Qwen-Image. How we grade
Where they differ
- Qwen-Image is open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
- Hunyuan also covers transcription and chat assistant.
In commonWebImage generation
At a glance
| Hunyuan | Qwen-Image | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Paid | Free |
| Starts at | Not published | Free |
| Free plan | None | The model weights are free to download and run under the Apache-2.0 license; you supply the hardware. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Tencent | Qwen (QwenLM) |
| Price read from | Not confirmed | github.com |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Nov 13, 2026 |
Worth knowing
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.
Qwen-Image
- Running the model locally needs a capable GPU and a Python setup; the quick start uses Diffusers and PyTorch.
- Hosted use goes through Qwen Chat; its limits and any paid tiers were not readable, so they are not recorded here.
- The README says demand on the official demo is heavy and points to third-party hosts such as DashScope, WaveSpeed and LibLib.
- The newest 2.0 model is announced in the README; its weights are not confirmed there as open.
Key features
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.
Qwen-Image
- Text rendering
- The project describes strong rendering of text inside images, especially Chinese, and newer releases add typography for posters and infographics.
- Image editing
- Separate Qwen-Image-Edit releases cover editing, with multi-image input in the 2511 version.
- Open weights
- Weights for Qwen-Image, Qwen-Image-2512 and the edit models are released on Hugging Face and ModelScope.
- Native 2K output in 2.0
- Qwen-Image-2.0, announced in February 2026, is described as supporting native 2K resolution and 1,000-token instructions.
- Tool support
- The README lists support in ComfyUI, Diffusers, vLLM-Omni, SGLang-Diffusion and LoRA fine-tunes.
Plans
Hunyuan
Pricing could not be confirmed. See hunyuan.tencent.com.
Qwen-Image
Open weights$0
Download the weights from Hugging Face or ModelScope and run them yourself; hardware costs are yours.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Hunyuan or Qwen-Image?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Hunyuan has no price we could confirm, and Qwen-Image is free.
Which has a free plan, Hunyuan or Qwen-Image?
As of Nov 13, 2026, only Qwen-Image 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.