Midjourney vs DALL-E: What’s the Better Image Generator?

AI-powered image generators, like MidJourney and DALL-E, have taken the storytelling world by storm. With the swipe of a few keystrokes, people who have never even drawn a stick figure can make graphic designs worthy of hanging in an art gallery.

But in this showdown: MidJourney vs DALL-E, which one is the best? Let’s dive in and explore how these two AI titans stack up in the world of AI image generation.

What are DALL-E and Midjourney?

DALL-E and MidJourney can take whatever crazy idea you’ve got in mind—whether it’s a cozy cat napping on a windowsill or a saber-toothed tiger skipping through a neon-lit forest—and turn it into a unique image in seconds through a prompt and generate command.

Granted, it’s not always perfect, but how do they do it? They’ve been trained on mountains of data, learning how to match words with visuals to create something that feels like AI art. Using a process called stable diffusion, they start with a blank canvas of random noise and slowly refine it until it matches your prompt. The coolest part? Every time you use them, the results are a little different—no two images are ever exactly the same.  

Midjourney vs DALL-E: Which is better?

Is DALL-E better than Midjourney? Sometimes it all comes down to the metrics. To make things a bit easier, we’ve compressed all of the main points of difference between Midjourney and DALL-E into a table. If you’re just here for the stats, here’s what they look like at a glance.

Now that we have that covered, let’s cover each topic with a little more detail, shall we? Here’s a full breakdown of MidJourney vs DALL-E

Ease of use

For starters, both generative AI tools are incredibly easy to use and user friendly. DALL-E gains a slight edge because of its integration with ChatGPT, which is free to use, albeit limited. Bing Image Creator, Microsoft Paint, and quite a few others integrate DALL-E’s API, so it’s definitely the more accessible tool here. 

‍

Through ChatGPT, if you go for the free plan, you’re only permitted to generate 3 images per day. If you opt for the paid plan, however, your limit goes up to 50 images every 4 hours.

Midjourney is also very easy to use. Originally, it only worked through a team chat app in Discord, but now there’s a simple web interface available. 

Although you will need to pay, all you have to do is type your prompt in the ‘Imagine’ bar at the top, and it will generate 4 images for you. 

Image quality

Based on the two examples above, you can see a pretty distinct difference between the quality of the AI generated images. DALL-E through ChatGPT, even though ‘realistic’ was specified, definitely takes a more cartoonish approach.

Midjourney, on the other hand, is much sharper and more realistic. The details in the fur, eyes, and shading make it feel more natural, almost like an oil painting, despite the cat being a wizard.

What’s even better is that you can control the influence of the Midjourney default style. Through the built-in settings, you can change how weird the output is allowed to be as well as the variety among the produced images. 

MidJourney gives you plenty of creative tools to bring your ideas to life. Choose from different model versions or use images as prompts for style or character references. Once an image is generated, you can refine it by making variations, expanding it in any direction, adjusting the aspect ratio, or zooming out for a wider view. Plus, by ranking your favorite images, MidJourney learns your preferences to better match your style over time.

To be perfectly honest, this is only just the basics. Midjourney is well known for being completely customizable, allowing you to adjust and edit the tiniest little details and produce very high quality images. On the flip side of the coin, this is not something that DALL-E is great at.

DALL-E has come a long way since launch, but the only real editing capabilities you have are within the prompts themselves. When it generates an image for you, you literally have to spell out what you want it to change, costing you credits. And it still might not be right.

‍

With DALL-E images, you also have a tool that allows you to select a specific area of the image to edit via a prompt. Mind you, Midjourney also has this feature, and it is much better.

Image accuracy

Quality is one thing, but fidelity is another. How accurately do these AI generators follow directions? 

For the images above, the prompt was ‘A gladiator preparing for battle in a Roman Colosseum, adjusting his helmet and gripping his shield’. As you can see, both images look very real and offer a lot of detail, but are also very different.

The DALL-E image on the left got almost everything right, minus the helmet adjusting. The right image was created by Midjourney, but missed the helmet part completely. 

For continuity’s sake, here’s another example with the prompt ‘Cybernetic street musicians playing luminous instruments in a neon-lit alley of a metropolis’.

Here, we have the same setup with the DALL-E 3 image generator on the left and Midjourney on the right. Both are very similar in art style, but the Midjourney image seems a lot busier. It feels a lot more on-point according to the prompt given, while DALL-E seems to have specifically focused on the musicians and very little else.

Text accuracy

Speaking of accuracy, let’s talk about text-based images for a second–something that AI very often has a hard time with when generating images. Believe it or not, Midjourney actually struggles the most here.

On the left, you can see that the same quality Midjourney produced for the other images just isn’t there anymore. Especially when you compare it to the amazing-looking clouds in the background. The text seems very out of place.

DALL-E, however, absolutely nailed it. For some reason, it thought that 3D text would look the best in such a setting, and it was right. It looks great!

An important note here is that, despite the quality, the accuracy for both text images was 100%. The spelling is correct and the lettering is consistent throughout.

How much does DALL-E cost?

Pricing is probably one of the biggest deciding factors for anyone in any scenario, so it’s important that we lay out all the options. But, just a heads up, DALL-E’s pricing can get complicated. How much does DALL-E cost, though? Let’s break it down.

Right off the bat, as we mentioned in the table, DALL-E is the only one with a free option. Through ChatGPT, users can generate 3 images every 24 hours for free. As limited as this might seem, it’s still extremely helpful in a pinch.

Beyond that, you can pay for ChatGPT Plus, which offers access to OpenAI’s integration with DALL-E. There’s also a usage-based model that can get kind of complicated, depending on the quality and resolution you’re looking for. But, it can roughly be summarized by the image below.

How much does Midjourney cost?

Midjourney is a lot simpler than that, although it turns out to be more expensive. They have flat, monthly rates per user, and offer a 20% discount for annual plans. 

It’s also important to point out that editing uploaded images is only available when you opt for the annual plan. With that said, if you plan on using Midjourney a lot, it’s probably a good idea to go ahead and sign up for the yearly plan.

What’s the Best Overall AI Image Generator?

So, is DALL-E better than Midjourney, or is it vice versa? There are a lot of factors to consider when comparing the two. Both tools are very powerful AI image-generating tools, but there are certain situations where you’d want to use one over the other.

Despite that, if we’re just paring them head-to-head, Midjourney comes out on top. It might be slightly more expensive, but it is so much more powerful that there might as well not even be any AI-powered Midjourney competitors. It’s just that good.

The Fundamental Issue with All AI Images

No AI tool is going to be perfect, especially image generators like DALL-E or Midjourney. Imagery is meant to extract emotion from the viewer, which is something that AI lacks entirely.

No matter how many times you prompt a new image, you will always find something that’s not 100% correct. Could be extra fingers, odd lighting, missing landscape aspects, or a million other things. 99.99% of people will always be able to identify work done by AI graphic design tools.

So what do we do? Luckily, there are platforms like ManyPixels. 

You can think of ManyPixels like DALL-E or Midjourney for professionals, minus the crazy AI outputs. It is a subscription-based design service that utilizes the talents of real designers. Unlike AI, you get a human touch that can’t be replicated, unlimited requests, and unlimited revisions. All for just $549 per month.

Conclusion

When you compare DALL-E 3 and Midjourney next to each other, you will undoubtedly notice some similarities. In equal proportions, you’ll also find many differences. They are both cutting-edge AI tools that have been designed for specific purposes, but Midjourney can do a lot more.

Don’t forget, though, that they both lack the personal element. Instead of opting for transparently AI images, you can enlist the help of ManyPixels and get professional images without the headache of prompting and re-prompting. Schedule a call today, and see just exactly what makes them so much better than both DALL-E and Midjourney combined.