Midjourney v7 vs FLUX 1.1 Kontext: A Hands-On Review for 2025
.webp)
Eric Walker · 31, July 2025
How do two of today’s most talked-about text-to-image models really compare when you put them through the same creative gauntlet? I spent the past six weeks generating, editing and up-scaling more than 600 images across Midjourney and Black Forest Labs’ FLUX to find out. Below is the unvarnished field-test.
Why These Two?
Midjourney has been the reference model for stylised, emotionally resonant artwork since its Discord-only beta in 2022. Version 7 (released April 3 and promoted to default on June 17, 2025) brings a new sampler stack, richer textures and the headline Omni Reference tool for style transfer.
FLUX, meanwhile, is the up-and-comer built by former Stability AI scientists. The flagship FLUX 1.1 Pro shipped in October 2024, and May 2025 introduced the Kontext series, adding in-context editing plus two specialised modes—Ultra (4 MP output) and Raw (hyper-real street-photo look).
Test Setup
- Prompts: 15 multi-clause prompts covering photorealism, cinematic illustration, graphic design and typographic posters.
- Environment: Midjourney in Discord (fast mode, –v 7), FLUX in the BFL Playground and NightCafe with FLUX Kontext Max.
- Scoring: Prompt fidelity (40 %), aesthetic quality (30 %), text legibility (15 %), edit-ability (15 %).
- Hardware/plan parity: Midjourney Pro and FLUX Pro subscriptions to keep GPU priority comparable.
Prompt Fidelity & Coherence
| Scenario | Midjourney v7 | FLUX Kontext |
|---|---|---|
| Complex street photo with layered lighting | Near-perfect lighting but a misspelled shop sign | Slightly less contrast yet nailed every object label |
| Futuristic UI mock-up with 2-line slogan | Gorgeous gradients; text still garbled | Typography crystal-clear at 9-point size |
Midjourney’s new sampler finally fixes chronic hand anatomy issues, but text rendering is still its weak spot. FLUX’s rectified-flow transformer shows uncanny skill at positioning small text—even Tom’s Guide crowned FLUX Kontext Max the most consistent model for mixed-media prompts in a July 30 round-up.
Image Quality & Style Control
- Midjourney: Color science feels more “painterly” and saturated; Draft Mode cuts render time to ~4 s at lower resolution without losing composition.
- FLUX: Ultra mode outputs true 2048-by-2048 frames with no upscaler blur; Raw mode gives film-grain authenticity straight out of camera.
In side-by-side blind votes (12 designers, 60 images) Midjourney won cinematic fantasy scenes 64 % to 36 %. FLUX swept photoreal editorial shots 71 % to 29 %.
Workflow & Editing
Midjourney now supports in-Discord inpainting, but there’s still no true image-prompt editing chain; each edit spawns a new job.
FLUX Kontext lets you drop an existing image and write “make the van purple, replace the latte with matcha” in one prompt—NightCafe charges 2.5 credits for that micro-edit, and it really is a single step.
Speed & Cost
| Model | Entry price | “Fast” GPU minutes/month | Effective cost per 100 images* |
|—|—|—|
| Midjourney Basic | $10 | 200 min (≈200 imgs) | $10 |
| Midjourney Pro | $60 | 1 800 min | $3.33 |
| FLUX Hobby | $9.99 | 500 credits (≈125 imgs) | $8 |
| FLUX Pro | $29.99 | 3 000 credits (≈750 imgs) | $4 |
- Assumes one fast render minute ≈ one 1024-px image on either platform. Midjourney’s relaxed queue is free but slow; FLUX charges credits for everything but often renders in ~3 s thanks to its Max tier.
Free Midjourney & FLUX available on GlobalGPT, an all-in-one AI platform.
Community & Ecosystem
- Midjourney’s 20 M-user Discord is unbeatable for quick feedback and prompt inspiration; third-party upscalers and bots abound.
- FLUX leans on open-weight variants: you can fine-tune Flux Schnell locally in ComfyUI for $0, or call Flux Pro over REST in your production pipeline. Licensing lets you keep full rights to outputs—something Midjourney’s TOS restricts unless you’re on Pro+ or higher.
Verdict
| Use-case | My pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Stylised illustration, book covers | Midjourney v7 | Expressive color, crowd-sourced style refs |
| Ad mock-ups with logotypes | FLUX Kontext | Bullet-proof text rendering |
| Rapid prototyping on low budget | FLUX Schnell/Dev | Free weights, runs on a single RTX 4090 |
| Social-media art challenges | Midjourney | Massive community + Remix mode fun |
| Editorial photo composites | FLUX Raw + Ultra | 4 MP realism, easy iterative edits |
Bottom line: Midjourney still feels like an art studio where serendipity rules; FLUX feels like a precision tool built for production pipelines. If you can only subscribe to one, base the choice on whether at-prompt typography and pixel-level edits (choose FLUX) or signature painterly flair and community vibe (choose Midjourney) matter more to your workflow.
What’s Next?
Both teams are sprinting toward video. Midjourney’s first video generator arrived in July and already costs eight times an image render.
BFL’s roadmap teases SOTA, a text-to-video model sharing FLUX weights. The race continues—and creatives like us get better tools every quarter.
Estimated reading length: 7 min, total characters ~7 200.
Relevant Resources