BAGEL
ByteDanceOpenApache 2.0
BAGEL is an AI image model from ByteDance. On LMArena’s Text-to-image leaderboard it ranks 82 of 82 with 898±6 from 12,363 votes. On LMArena’s Image editing leaderboard it ranks 59 of 60 with 1027±6 from 13,488 votes. License: Apache 2.0.
Key figures
- Developer
- ByteDance
- License
- Apache 2.0
- Released (per AA)
- May 2025
Who it is for (from the data)
- When quality is not the top priority: #82 of 82 on Text-to-image, in the bottom half; if quality matters most, check higher-ranked models first.
- Generating and editing images: it is ranked on both boards.
- Self-hosting or on-premise use: LMArena lists its license as Apache 2.0.
- Existing ByteDance users: this vendor has 8 models on Text-to-image.
Neighbours on Text-to-image
| # | Model | Score | Votes | AA Elo | License | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 76 |  GLM Image Z.ai | 1012 | 4,854 | 885 | MIT | +114 |
| 77 |  Gemini 2.0 Flash Preview Image Generation Google | 975 | 257,227 | – | Proprietary | +77 |
| 78 |  FLUX 1 Dev FP8 Black Forest Labs | 969 | 49,221 | – | Open | +71 |
| 79 |  DALL·E 3 OpenAI | 968 | 238,743 | – | Proprietary | +70 |
| 80 | FLUX 1 Kontext Dev Black Forest Labs | 941 | 216,225 | – | flux-1-dev-non-commercial-license | +43 |
| 81 | ?Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large | 938 | 23,396 | – | Open | +40 |
| 82 | BAGEL ByteDance | 898 | 12,363 | 594 | Apache 2.0 |
Alternatives · More from ByteDance
| # | Model | Score | Votes | AA Elo | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | Seedream 5.0 Pro ByteDance | 1255 | 94,181 | 1100 | Proprietary |
| 36 | Seedream 4.5 ByteDance | 1149 | 300,107 | 1026 | Proprietary |
| 39 | Seedream 4 2K ByteDance | 1140 | 12,562 | – | Proprietary |
| 40 | Seedream 5.0 Lite ByteDance | 1138 | 129,950 | 1017 | Proprietary |
| 46 | Seedream 4 fal ByteDance | 1117 | 11,841 | – | Proprietary |
Alternatives · Top open-weight models
| # | Model | Score | Votes | AA Elo | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 |  Qwen Image 2.1 Alibaba | 1223 | 11,441 | 1042 | qwen-research |
| 20 |  Ideogram 4.0 Quality Ideogram | 1205 | 60,591 | – | Ideogram Open Model |
| 27 |  Cosmos3-Super-Text2Image (Agentic) NVIDIA | 1165 | 10,805 | – | OpenMDW-1.1 |
| 33 | Cosmos3-Super-Text2Image NVIDIA | 1152 | 18,485 | – | OpenMDW-1.1 |
| 35 |  Hunyuan Image 3.0 Tencent | 1150 | 180,518 | 989 | tencent-hunyuan-community |
How to read the scores
- LMArena score: people blind-pick the better of two anonymous images for the same prompt, and the votes are fitted into an Elo-style rating; "±" is the 95% confidence interval.
- Text-to-image and image edit are separate boards, so scores are not comparable across them; AA Elo comes from Artificial Analysis on a different scale.
- If the gap between two models is smaller than their combined intervals, the order is not statistically reliable; treat them as the same tier. More votes mean narrower intervals.
FAQ
Where does BAGEL rank among AI image models?
Text-to-image rank 82 (898); Image editing rank 59 (1027) (LMArena, data as of Oct 26, 2026).
Is BAGEL open-weight?
LMArena lists its license as Apache 2.0 (not proprietary); check the license text for commercial-use terms.
Can BAGEL edit images?
Yes. BAGEL is #59 of 60 on the LMArena image-edit board (1027, 13,488 votes).
Who makes BAGEL?
According to LMArena, BAGEL is made by ByteDance.
How reliable is BAGEL's score?
The scores are based on 12,363 votes on Text-to-image (95% CI ±6); 13,488 votes on Image editing (95% CI ±6). More votes and narrower intervals mean a more stable rank.
How far is BAGEL from #1 on Text-to-image?
#1 on Text-to-image is GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst (1425); BAGEL scores 898, 527 points behind.
Sources
LMArena Text-to-image data published on Oct 7, 2026.
LMArena Image editing data published on Oct 20, 2026.
17NAS syncs the upstream leaderboards daily; this page's data was synced on Oct 26, 2026.
Price, resolution and speed have no reliable public data yet and are omitted; all values come from the snapshot, blanks show –.