The Best Free AI Art Generators, Ranked

An image of a dog with swirling lines in an oil painterly style.

The internet's mind is better than mine. The fact is not a point of contention. You shouldn't have to watch my attempts at oil painting, because they're so bad. Even the worst artificial intelligence image generators have a strange fluid quality to them that makes each attempt to depict them so different.

The best system-produced images are more than just ways to create weird nightmare depictions of celebrities. It isn't enough for the digital artiste to vaguely offer an interpretation of users' original pictures.

Even the most unskilled in the arts of brush on canvas can understand the middle ground between technology and art. What can we do to make a difference? What are we interested in? That is what the machines can do.

I don't want to twiddle my thumbs until my turn comes up on the waiting list for the robust program like Dall-E. I would be curious to see how well Dall-E 2 does compared to the other online versions.

We turn to the free art generators that offer free trials. I gave the programs the same text prompt based on books I have recently read. There are books included.

Jeanetteng wrote Under the Pendulum Sun.

There is a man and a woman in the middle of the sun.

The Dispossessed was written by Ursula K.

There is a mathematician standing on a dusty planet.

Arkady Martine wrote a memory called Empire.

The woman was alone against the empire.

Photos are required when using image generators. I would rather see different systems than exclude them. I used the same image for each platform that didn't allow for text prompt.

Say hello to the young greyhound named Skip.

I am not an art critic, but I can tell you if the art generated by artificial intelligence is actually trying to depict a prompt in a way that is not derivative or that relies on copying and replicating art found on the internet.

Some of the results from a few of the more popular free art generators surprised me. We should take a look.

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Turn your image into art. Let's see what Fotor can do to make Skip more artistic.

There is absolutely nothing here that I haven't seen before using the Go Art creator. The program is easy to use, but I don't think it's fun to make an image like a sketch. If you want an image without a watermark, the program has a neat little photo editor, but you will have to pay. If you don't want to pay, there are better, free programs online.

Hotpot is a fairly basic program that allows users to make relatively simple artificial intelligence art. It doesn't understand what it's being asked to do. It is hard to see the original prompt in the system. Many image generators struggle with faces.

Despite all that Deepai has, it doesn't have much else going for it anyways. The text to image system doesn't have the bells and whistles of newer systems. The images are more of a collection of images found on the internet than anything else.

You have to give props for a system that is easy to use and open, because you have to love free software. The only thing you have to do is go to the link, scroll down and input your prompt in the text box, then either hit F9 or run all.

The artistic ability of the system is ranked by us. You can see where the artificial intelligence is trying to go with each image if the system progresses iteratively. Some of the results were really interesting, but there were also a few head scratchers.

I chose the closest image to the spirit of the prompt because the system created a number of different images it hoped would fit the bill. The images are low resolution and detract from the fact that it gives you so many options to choose from.

The art on the tiles left a lot to be desired. Craiyon feels like it is grabbing images from all over the internet and turning them into an approximation of what it thinks is the prompt.

The Deep Dream Generator is said to be able to transform images into works of art. The main feed of images on the site makes it seem very evocative, but it's not easy to make an image of young Skip appear as more than just a dog.

The Blind Leading the Blind is a work by the renowned Dutch artist Pieter Bruegel. Alright, it came out... It was interesting to try it with a pattern. The painting added to the style came out kind of boring.

It is fun, but I feel like I am playing with a color-in-the-lines book rather than creating art.

The Nightcafe system will only let you do a few images before asking you to pay up, but it also gives users a whole selection of different styles to choose from. You will run out quickly if you buy credit in order to make more arts or raise the quality of images.

There is art all over. I like what it tried to do with The Dispossessed, but it wouldn't make a human look like one of the other two. The art is very strange even in the default oil painting setting. It is nice to be able to try out the system and see if you like it, but even for $10 a month, you can find better options.

This is another system that gives users a few free credits to start, but eventually they will be asked to pay for more. There is nothing wrong with paying for the creation of art, but it has to be worth it. There is no hand holding allowed for the rankings of this art generator.

There is a lot of art in this picture. I like what it came up with for The Dispossessed, but I don't know what it had in mind for Empire.

You can use the Wombo Dream system to create art in a variety of styles. The style of each book was a factor in my decision. I restricted the system to its own imagination because it allows you to include a reference image. The images can be turned into NFTs.

I have to give it to Wombo. It definitely gave it the 1970s art style look you would see on an old album cover. It is very loose with its interpretation. I get a weird erotic sense from its interpretation of A Memory Called Empire. I was surprised by it's interpretation of Under the Pendulum Sun.

Midjourney is the main player in the art generation scene. It has gotten a lot of attention since its open alpha, but it is actually one of the best artificial intelligence art generators on the market. The crispness of the generated images made them seem like they were done with human hands.

There is a sense of repetition in Midjourney, as I have seen similar poses among other user-prompted images. However, that doesn't mean that the art isn't evocative. Just look at it. Several of the images are based on The Dispossessed prompt. Several of the people in the last panel are similar to the one in the movie A Memory of Empire.

The first few generated images are offered as a trial, but then they ask users to pay $10 a month for 200 images.

There were 12 or 12.