Top 10 AI Image Generators in April 2025: GPT-4o Takes the Crown, Midjourney Falls
In April 2025, the landscape of image-generating AI is shifting rapidly, with newcomers rising fast and familiar giants falling behind. The Text to Image Arena, hosted by Artificial Analysis, is once again revealing who’s dominating the creative AI race. Based on anonymous user votes between image duels generated from the same prompt, the arena updates a live Elo-based ranking, showing which models currently lead in visual quality and consistency.
GPT-4o Claims First Place
This month, GPT-4o by OpenAI seizes the top position, following weeks of heated online debates, fueled by viral images resembling Ghibli-style art and memeable starter packs. Its emergence has disrupted the hierarchy, knocking out long-established contenders.
Just behind GPT-4o is Seedream 3.0, a newly released model from ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. Its impressive performance has made it one of the most talked-about tools of the season.
Another standout debut is HiDream-I1-Dev, a still-in-development model that’s already showing elite-level output. These fresh arrivals are reshaping the top tier of image AIs, reflecting a highly dynamic and competitive field.
Midjourney Drops Out of the Top 10
Surprisingly, Midjourney, once considered a dominant force in AI imagery, has dropped to 16th place. Even its alpha-stage v7 model lags behind older versions like v6.1 and v6. Meanwhile, Reve, which topped the charts in March, tumbles to sixth place.
Here are the top 10 AI image generators for April 2025, according to Text to Image Arena’s Elo ranking:
GPT-4o – 1156
Seedream 3.0 – 1152
Recraft V3 – 1111
HiDream-I1-Dev – 1111
Imagen 3 (v002) – 1092
Reve – 1090
Ideogram 3.0 – 1089
FLUX1.1 [pro] – 1083
FLUX.1 [pro] – 1068
MiniMax Image-01 – 1051
How the Ranking Works
The Text to Image Arena operates similarly to its language counterpart, LMArena. Users are shown two AI-generated images side-by-side, without knowing which model created them. They vote for the one they prefer. These thousands of anonymous comparisons are compiled to calculate a real-time Elo score, a method borrowed from chess and esports, ensuring fair, dynamic evaluation based on user preference and model consistency.
A Growing Trend Toward Transparency—and Ecology
While the Text to Image Arena emphasizes performance and transparency, France is taking a more environmentally conscious approach. The DINUM and Ministry of Culture have launched Compar:IA, a similar benchmarking platform for text AIs, integrating not only quality assessments but also ecological impact metrics—a necessary evolution in AI accountability.
Geoffrey G
