Midjourney

Midjourney is the leading AI image generation platform, used by over 20M creators, designers, and artists globally. It has set the quality benchmark for photorealistic and artistic AI image generation since its launch, and remains the industry standard for professional creative use with a consistently advancing model series.

Midjourney V8.1, released April-May 2026, introduces native 2K rendering — images are generated at 2048-pixel resolution natively, not upscaled from a lower base. Generation speed is 3 to 4 times faster than V7, making high-quality image creation significantly more practical for iterative creative workflows where dozens of variations are generated before a final selection. Raw mode is a new prompt interpretation setting that reduces the model's creative embellishment: with Raw mode enabled, Midjourney interprets prompts more literally and with less stylistic injection, giving users who want precise control more predictable output from detailed technical prompts.

Public profiles with subscriptions is a new social feature that allows Midjourney users to make their generated images publicly accessible on a profile page. Users can follow other creators and subscribe to their profiles to see new creations in a social feed. This moves Midjourney from a pure generation utility toward a creative social platform where discovery, inspiration, and community engagement happen alongside generation.

Midjourney TV is a new feature that streams a real-time feed of newly generated images from across the platform on a television-style continuous broadcast. It serves as a discovery mechanism showing what the Midjourney community is creating in real time, providing both inspiration and a sense of the platform's creative breadth.

Midjourney V8.2 has been announced as the next release, indicating that the V8 generation will continue iterating beyond V8.1 with further quality and speed improvements.

Midjourney plans start at $10/month (Basic), $30/month (Standard), $60/month (Pro), and $120/month (Mega). There is no free tier. Midjourney is best for professional designers, artists, and creative agencies who need the highest-quality AI image generation with advanced prompt control and a platform built around creative community.