FLUX.1 schnell
Blazing-fast open-weights image model — Apache-2.0, 1-4 steps.
About
FLUX.1 schnell is Black Forest Labs' distilled, speed-optimized image model: where FLUX.1-dev needs dozens of diffusion steps, schnell produces quality images in 1-4 steps — fast enough for near-real-time generation on good GPUs. 12B parameters, and unusually for its quality tier, Apache-2.0 licensed (the real OSI deal — commercial use, modification, and redistribution allowed). 595k Hugging Face downloads. It trades a little prompt adherence and polish for speed versus FLUX.1-dev; FLUX.2 now leads the family, but schnell remains the fastest open-weights option per step.
Specs
Context window
Pricing
Free quota
API access
Weights
Released
Benchmarks
No standard benchmarks; evaluated on quality/speed tradeoffs vs FLUX.1-dev and SDXL Turbo-class models (2024): schnell wins on speed, dev wins on fidelity — qualitative, test your own prompts.
Provider-reported unless a source says otherwise. Benchmarks are marketing-adjacent by nature — treat them as directional.
Use cases
Trust score — 8/10
Scored 8/10 (verified tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: HF: black-forest-labs/FLUX.1-schnell; HF downloads 595,138 (peer-normalized); released 804 days ago. Manual review: BFL's fast distilled FLUX (1-4 steps); Apache-2.0 is the real deal; trades fidelity for speed vs dev; FLUX.2 supersedes the 1.x line. License: Apache-2.0.
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 8.5/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 4.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 10.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 8.0/10
- · HF: black-forest-labs/FLUX.1-schnell
- · HF downloads 595,138 (peer-normalized)
- · released 804 days ago
- · manual review: BFL's fast distilled FLUX (1-4 steps); Apache-2.0 is the real deal; trades fidelity for speed vs dev; FLUX.2 supersedes the 1.x line