Seedream 5.0 Lite
ByteDanceProprietary
Seedream 5.0 Lite is an AI image model from ByteDance. On LMArena’s Text-to-image leaderboard it ranks 40 of 82 with 1138±3 from 129,950 votes. On LMArena’s Image editing leaderboard it ranks 31 of 60 with 1295±3 from 485,179 votes. License: Proprietary.
Key figures
- Developer
- ByteDance
- License
- Proprietary
- Released (per AA)
- Feb 2026
Who it is for (from the data)
- Solid quality with room to choose: #40 of 82 on Text-to-image, in the top half.
- Generating and editing images: it is ranked on both boards.
- Use via ByteDance's service or API: LMArena lists it as proprietary.
- Existing ByteDance users: this vendor has 8 models on Text-to-image.
Neighbours on Text-to-image
| # | Model | Score | Votes | AA Elo | License | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 37 |  Imagen Ultra 4.0 Generate 001 Google | 1148 | 388,736 | – | Proprietary | +10 |
| 38 |  FLUX 2 Dev Black Forest Labs | 1146 | 77,988 | – | flux-non-commercial-license | +8 |
| 39 | Seedream 4 2K ByteDance | 1140 | 12,562 | – | Proprietary | +2 |
| 40 | Seedream 5.0 Lite ByteDance | 1138 | 129,950 | 1017 | Proprietary | |
| 41 |  Wan 2.6 T2I Alibaba | 1137 | 233,292 | – | Proprietary | -1 |
| 42 |  Recraft V4.1 Pro Recraft | 1133 | 2,795 | – | Proprietary | -5 |
| 43 | Imagen 4.0 Generate 001 Google | 1129 | 539,732 | – | Proprietary | -9 |
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 |
| 46 | Seedream 4 fal ByteDance | 1117 | 11,841 | – | Proprietary |
| 51 | Seedream 4 High Res fal ByteDance | 1113 | 182,685 | – | 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 Seedream 5.0 Lite rank among AI image models?
Text-to-image rank 40 (1138); Image editing rank 31 (1295) (LMArena, data as of Oct 26, 2026).
Is Seedream 5.0 Lite open-weight?
No. LMArena lists it as Proprietary; it is available only through ByteDance’s products or API.
Can Seedream 5.0 Lite edit images?
Yes. Seedream 5.0 Lite is #31 of 60 on the LMArena image-edit board (1295, 485,179 votes).
Who makes Seedream 5.0 Lite?
According to LMArena, Seedream 5.0 Lite is made by ByteDance.
How reliable is Seedream 5.0 Lite's score?
The scores are based on 129,950 votes on Text-to-image (95% CI ±3); 485,179 votes on Image editing (95% CI ±3). More votes and narrower intervals mean a more stable rank.
How far is Seedream 5.0 Lite from #1 on Text-to-image?
#1 on Text-to-image is GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst (1425); Seedream 5.0 Lite scores 1138, 287 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 –.