The Ultimate AI Showdown: Midjourney vs Dall-E 2 – Who Takes the Crown?

If you are not sure about using Dall-E 2 and Midjourney, read this blog on the difference between the two.

“The ethics isn’t in the technology. It’s in the people.” 

Jason Allen

The AI revolution is happening right now. On the graphic design and marketing fronts, we have two contenders, Midjourney AI and Dall-E 2. Let’s discover the difference between the two incredible text-to-image generators. 

Who Founded These AI Art Generators?

Dall-E 2 is the successor of Dall-E from the OpenAI research lab that is behind the incredible ChatGPT. While Midjourney AI is founded by San Francisco-based independent research lab Midjourney, Inc., with founder and CEO David Holz. Read more about Midjourney in detail. 

During the beta phase of Dall-E 2 in 2022, there were a million registered users. By now, it has three million registered users, and it generates four million images daily (OpenAI). Back in September 2022, in an interview with Forbes magazine and Holz, he mentioned there were two million discord users for Midjourney. 

Also, explore our recent blog on Dall-E 2 and learn how it has been trained. 

What are the Unique Features of Midjourney and Dall-E 2?

Dall-E 2 and Midjourney are based on natural language descriptions meaning they both create images from textual descriptions. 

Millions of images across the web have contributed to training these generator tools, including Stable Diffusion, to create high-quality images. According to The Decoder, one dataset all three use is the LAION-5B, which contains five billion image links. 

There are a few key areas of difference between Midjourney and Dall-E 2 when speaking of features. 

Upscaling – Midjourney Wins

The maximum upscaling of an image in Dall-E 2 is 1024×1024 pixels. If you happen to use Midjourney, the max upscale limit is 2048 x 2048 pixels. Midjourney, on the other hand, has several upscaling options which are not present in Dall-E 2. 

Midjourney differs from Dall-E 2 when you want to adjust images in variations and upscaling. OpenAI’s art generator provides only variations. In Midjourney, you can use suffixes in your prompt to create further variations. Try the Niji mode if you want the image to look more like an anime version.

Edit Your Own Images or Extend – Dall-E 2 Wins

Dall-E 2 has an amazing outpainting feature where you can generate and extend unique images. The inpainting feature, on the other hand, helps you edit your own images. You can add specific text descriptions to update or change your uploaded image completely. 

Which One is Easier to Access?

There are text prompts for Dall-E 2, while you have to use the /imagine command on public Discord channel of Midjourney to generate images. 

To use Dall-E 2, you must create an account on the OpenAI website and then log in to start using it instantly.

You can start using Midjourney with a Discord account. You must use one of the newcomer rooms and then prompt on the public space. 

Are Results Better with Midjourney or Dall-E 2?

It all depends on how you use the prompts and what you expect from these AI tools. In Dall-E 2, the images need relatively more descriptive prompts than in Midjourney. The AI-generated images from Dall-E 2 and Mijourney vastly differ, even with the same prompts. 

In Midjourney, you will get hyperrealistic and highly detailed images and colours. Dall-E 2 also provides great results but the results will not be the same. 

Here is an example of the same prompt in Dall-E 2 and Midjourney AI. 

The prompt provided was 

‘Van Gogh style of painting for cyberpunk based Taj Mahal’

Dall-E 2 Result

Now, Dall-E 2 recognises the typical colour palette of cyberpunk aesthetics. Blue, yellow, and red, including neon-like vibrancy, are included in the image. 

And it gets the architecture of the Taj Mahal right. Even Van Gogh’s technique of using impasto, meaning a thick colour mixture, is present in all four variations, along with the thick brushstrokes common across all his paintings. 

Have a look at one of the image variations in greater detail below and notice the thick brushstrokes and blurry lines with the colour combination.

MidJourney Result

The Midjourney result with the same prompt instantly provides high-resolution variations. That’s great! But there is a certain digital quality with increased sharpness and detail that Van Gogh and the Impressionist movement never focused on. (Impressionists focused on blurring lines and colours.) 

The above image from Midjourney also takes the brushstrokes and colour combination from the famous Starry Night oil-on-canvas painting and adds a dash of cyberpunk aesthetic. But it does not provide the characteristics of an Impressionist painting, as Dall-E 2 did. Not to say, Midjourney cannot understand Impressionism; you have to change the prompt a little and make it more descriptive. 

Which One is Pricier?

Midjourney comes with a USD 30 per month subscription model. But you can start with this AI image generator with 25 free images. Dall-E 2 comes with 50 free credits in the first month and 15 credits after the first month if you don’t want to go for the tiered pricing. Dall-E 2 has a three-tier pricing strategy – $0.020 / image for 1024 x 1024 pixels, $0.018 / image for 512 x 512 pixels, and $0.016 / image for 256×256 pixels. 

Will You Use Dall-E 2 or Midjourney or Both?

Both are incredible art generation tools using artificial intelligence. Each has its unique advantages, and the capabilities will only evolve. But one thing is certain – Dall-E 2 and Midjourney are great tools for quick ideation and creation and can help graphic designers and artists concretise unique ideas in seconds.

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