- Best for
- Logos, posters, thumbnails and anything with words in it
- Price
- Freemium · from $20/month
Free: 30 credits a week (when signing in with Google, Apple or Microsoft); free images are public - Platforms
- Web, iOS, API
- Made by
- Ideogram AI Inc., Toronto, Canada · since 2022
- App store ratings
- iOS 4.8★ (2.7K)
What it is
Ideogram was founded by former Google Brain researchers to fix garbled text in AI images, and typography is still its strength. Ideogram 4.0 (June 2026) is its first open-weight model, released under an Apache 2.0 licence, alongside the web app, iOS app and API.
Latest: Ideogram released Ideogram 4.0 as an open-weight model in June 2026.
What the AI does
- Ideogram 4.0 model with strong typography
- Layout and structured prompt control
- Canvas with Magic Fill and Extend
- Style and character references
- Upscaling to 8K
Pros and cons
- Among the most accurate text rendering available
- Open-weight 4.0 model can be self-hosted
- Useful free plan
- Simple, fast interface
- Trails the leaders on photorealism
- Free images are public
- No Android app
How it scores
Image quality8
Ease of use8.5
Features7.5
Value for money8
Platforms6
Ideogram 4.0 ranks 20th on the Arena text-to-image leaderboard; excellent at text, weaker at general scenes.
Feature checklist · 6 of 9
- –Edit an uploaded image with text instructions (no)
- ✓Reliable text rendering inside images (yes)
- ✓Style or character references, or custom style training (yes)
- ✓Edit selected regions (inpaint, outpaint or expand) (yes)
- ✓Upscaling or 2K+ output (yes)
- ✓Free plan for generating images (yes)
- –Commercial use allowed on a paid plan (no)
- –iOS and Android apps (no)
- ✓Developer API (yes)
How we score apps →
Alternatives
See all Ideogram alternatives, ranked →
- ChatGPT Images 9.2/10Anyone who wants the best all-round results just by describing what they want
- Gemini (Nano Banana) 8.9/10Editing your own photos and anyone already using Google's apps
- Grok Imagine 8.2/10Grok and X users who want strong photorealism and editing
- Adobe Firefly 8.0/10Designers working in Photoshop and businesses that need commercially safe images
ChatGPT Images vs Ideogram
Sources
