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GROUNDED IN REAL HUMAN CONVERSATIONSYOUR BENCH
SDXL Lightning
◆ OPEN
by ByteDance
OPEN WEIGHTSLOCALCREATIVE
RANKED #46 OF 94 IMAGES · OVERALL #184 OF 6,567 · VIBE SCORE 6.0 · 92 VOICES
SDXL-Lightning-GGUF on Hugging Face (text to image). 1,213 downloads. Open weights for local or hosted use.
HAPPY9.9
21 mentions
SAD5.1
6 mentions
VIBE TRAJECTORY
26 weeks · 5 voices
TOO QUIET
Not enough weekly voices to call a trend yet.
HOW TO USE IT
Open weights. You can use a hosted service, or download it and run it yourself, free.
RUN IT ON YOUR OWN MACHINE
Open weights: download SDXL Lightning once and it's yours. No subscription, no rate limits, works offline.
6.6B parameters (UNet + text encoders), FP16 safetensors checkpoint is about 6.5 GB, LoRA adapters are about 375 MB
- BARE MINIMUM
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6GB
6 GB VRAM
~$160FP8 / lowvram mode, 1024x1024 at 4 steps, ~2.5 s/image
- SWEET SPOT
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 8GB
8 GB VRAM
~$290FP16 checkpoint, 1024x1024 at 4-8 steps, comfortable generation, ~0.8 s/image
- FULL POWER
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Super 16GB
16 GB VRAM
~$950FP16 full pipeline with ControlNet and multi-batch generation, ~0.25 s/image
LEARN HOW TO SET IT UP
WILL MY BOX RUN SDXL LIGHTNING?
The three cards above are researched picks. Search the machine you actually have — we only say yes if it should reply at a usable speed, not just load the weights and crawl.
HARDWARE PICKS & PRICES ARE RESEARCHED FROM THE LIVE WEB AND REFRESHED AUTOMATICALLY. TREAT THEM AS BALLPARK, NOT GOSPEL.
WHAT CAN YOU ACTUALLY DO WITH IT?
Everyday jobs on each of those rigs: how long SDXL Lightning takes, and how good the crowd says it is at that kind of work.
| THE JOB | BARE MINIMUMNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6GB | SWEET SPOTNVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 8GB | FULL POWERNVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Super 16GB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Make an imageone picture at normal settings | ~3 S★★★★★ | UNDER A SECOND★★★★★ | UNDER A SECOND★★★★★ |
STARS ARE THE COMMUNITY SCORE FOR THAT KIND OF WORK, DOCKED FOR HOW SQUASHED THE WEIGHTS GET AT EACH TIER. TIMES ARE COMPUTED FROM RESEARCHED SPEEDS. BALLPARK, NOT GOSPEL.
WHAT THE INTERNET SAYS
People are mostly happy with SDXL Lightning. Biggest praise: how results look.
73 POSTS · 19 COMMENTS · REDDIT · GITHUB
PEOPLE LOVE
- Results look great (4 mentions)
PEOPLE COMPLAIN ABOUT
- No complaints yet. The internet is still looking for one. Suspicious.
TOPIC BY TOPIC
- How results lookPEOPLE LOVE THIS
4 thumbs up · 0 thumbs down
LOOKING FOR AN ALTERNATIVE?
Other models the crowd has fully reviewed, starting with images models like this one.
V1.1> SOURCES (12)
- REDDIT · 2024-07-03 · 746 UPVOTESAn experimental quiz game where players solve visual riddles. The goal is to match SDXL Lightning generated images as close as you can.…
An experimental quiz game where players solve visual riddles. The goal is to match SDXL Lightning generated images as close as you can. Thought on how to improve gameplay?
- REDDIT · 2024-04-22 · 378 UPVOTESFrom the creators of SDXL Lightning introduce "Hyper SD." Works with SDXL SD1.5 and controlnet models
From the creators of SDXL Lightning introduce "Hyper SD." Works with SDXL SD1.5 and controlnet models
- REDDIT · 2024-06-12 · 248 UPVOTESScrew SD3... My favorite workflow is to use an SDXL Lightning model to quickly lay the foundation, let it decode with the VAE that comes…
Screw SD3... My favorite workflow is to use an SDXL Lightning model to quickly lay the foundation, let it decode with the VAE that comes with it, Encode it to a latent again with a 1.5 model, feed it through that, upscale it (4x NMKD Siax) and scale it…
- REDDIT · 2024-04-13 · 112 UPVOTESAUTOMATIC1111 / stable-diffusion-webui Version 1.9.0 published
AUTOMATIC1111 / stable-diffusion-webui Version 1.9.0 published
- REDDIT · 2024-02-29 · 104 UPVOTESSDXL-Lightning: quick look and comparison
SDXL-Lightning: quick look and comparison
- REDDIT · 2024-07-03 · 94 UPVOTESComment in r/StableDiffusion
Comment in r/StableDiffusion
- REDDIT · 2024-04-04 · 90 UPVOTESSDXL Lightning + Midjourney mimic Lora is 👌
SDXL Lightning + Midjourney mimic Lora is 👌
- REDDIT · 2024-09-05 · 89 UPVOTESAn update to visual riddle quiz game (SDXL Lightning). Thoughts on updated gameplay?
An update to visual riddle quiz game (SDXL Lightning). Thoughts on updated gameplay?
- REDDIT · 2024-02-21 · 73 UPVOTESSDXL-Lightning Loras updated to .safetensors files
SDXL-Lightning Loras updated to .safetensors files
- REDDIT · 2024-05-13 · 73 UPVOTESThat "Bolting" SDXL Lightning checkpoint is really something.
That "Bolting" SDXL Lightning checkpoint is really something.
- REDDIT · 2024-03-23 · 59 UPVOTESKorra (Amazing results w/ SDXL Lightning)
Korra (Amazing results w/ SDXL Lightning)
- REDDIT · 2024-02-24 · 49 UPVOTESStable Cascade is worth the extra steps - the aesthetic ranking scores for all the recent models are tied but the prompt adherence for SC…
Stable Cascade is worth the extra steps - the aesthetic ranking scores for all the recent models are tied but the prompt adherence for SC is way higher. For most prompts now SC matches or exceeds DALL.E 3. SDXL 8-step lightning LoRA is also a solid…