SHSelfHostIndex

Stable Diffusion WebUI vs InvokeAI

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted ai image generation options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
ST Stable Diffusion WebUI Popular Gradio web UI for Stable Diffusion VS IN InvokeAI Professional creative engine for Stable Diffusion
FeatureStable Diffusion WebUIInvokeAI
CategoryAI Image GenerationAI Image Generation
LicenseAGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguagePythonPython
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM8,192 MB8,192 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcedocker, bare-metal, source
GitHub stars★ 164,436★ 27,783
First released20222022
ReplacesMidjourney, DALL-EMidjourney, Adobe Firefly

Why pick each one

Choose Stable Diffusion WebUI if…

  • Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 164.4k GitHub stars
  • Written in Python
Stable Diffusion WebUI details

Choose InvokeAI if…

  • Released under the Apache-2.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 27.8k GitHub stars
  • Written in Python
InvokeAI details

Frequently asked questions

Is Stable Diffusion WebUI or InvokeAI better?

Neither is universally better. Stable Diffusion WebUI has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Stable Diffusion WebUI and InvokeAI free and open-source?

Yes. Stable Diffusion WebUI is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and InvokeAI under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Stable Diffusion WebUI and InvokeAI with Docker?

Stable Diffusion WebUI: yes. InvokeAI: yes.

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