Model reference · open weights

flux.1-lite-alpha

Available as managed deployment Licence fee Image Freepik Text→image 1 variants 890 dl/mo

flux.1-lite-alpha is an open-weight image model from Freepik. AxForge deploys and operates it for you on dedicated EU-owned hardware — with the licence handled where one is required.

Available as managed deployment — configured and operated for you on dedicated EU hardware, quoted per deployment.

What it is

MakerFreepik
TypeImage models
TaskText→image
Parameters (lead)8.2B
Runs withdiffusers
Based onblack-forest-labs/FLUX.1-dev
Released2024-10-17
Popularity890 downloads / month
LicenceCommercial licence needed

About

What flux.1-lite-alpha is

We are thrilled to announce the alpha release of Flux.1 Lite, an 8B parameter transformer model distilled from the FLUX.1-dev model. This version uses 7 GB less RAM and runs 23% faster while maintaining the same precision (bfloat16) as the original model.

Text-to-Image

Flux.1 Lite is ready to unleash your creativity! For the best results, we strongly recommend using a guidance_scale of 3.5 and setting n_steps between 22 and 30.

import torch
from diffusers import FluxPipeline

base_model_id = "Freepik/flux.1-lite-8B-alpha"
torch_dtype = torch.bfloat16
device = "cuda"

# Load the pipe
model_id = "Freepik/flux.1-lite-8B-alpha"
pipe = FluxPipeline.from_pretrained(
    model_id, torch_dtype=torch_dtype
).to(device)

# Inference
prompt = "A close-up image of a green alien with fluorescent skin in the middle of a dark purple forest"

guidance_scale = 3.5  # Keep guidance_scale at 3.5
n_steps = 28
seed = 11

with torch.inference_mode():
    image = pipe(
        prompt=prompt,
        generator=torch.Generator(device="cpu").manual_seed(seed),
        num_inference_steps=n_steps,
        guidance_scale=guidance_scale,
        height=1024,
        width=1024,
    ).images[0]
image.save("output.png")

Motivation

Inspired by Ostris findings, we analyzed the mean squared error (MSE) between the input and output of each block to quantify their contribution to the final result, revealing significant variability.

As Ostris pointed out, not all blocks contribute equally. While skipping just one of the early MMDiT or late DiT blocks can significantly impact model performance, skipping any single block in between does not have a significant impact over the final image quality.

Future work

Stay tuned! Our goal is to distill FLUX.1-dev further until it can run smoothly on 24 GB consumer-grade GPU cards, maintaining its original precision (bfloat16), and running even faster, making high-quality AI models accessible to everyone.

ComfyUI

We've also crafted a ComfyUI workflow to make using Flux.1 Lite even more seamless! Find it in comfy/flux.1-lite_workflow.json.

The safetensors checkpoint is available here: flux.1-lite-8B-alpha.safetensors

HF spaces 🤗

You can also test the model on Flux.1 Lite HF space thanks to TheAwakenOne

Try it out at Freepik!

Our AI generator is now powered by Flux.1 Lite!

🔥 News 🔥

Citation

If you find our work helpful, please cite it!

@article{flux1-lite,
  title={Flux.1 Lite: Distilling Flux1.dev for Efficient Text-to-Image Generation},
  author={Daniel Verdú, Javier Martín},
  email={dverdu@freepik.com, javier.martin@freepik.com},
  year={2024},
}

Attribution notice

The FLUX.1 [dev] Model is licensed by Black Forest Labs. Inc. under the FLUX.1 [dev] Non-Commercial License. Copyright Black Forest Labs. Inc.

Our model weights are released under the FLUX.1 [dev] Non-Commercial License.

From the published model card. Full card on the HuggingFace links in the sidebar.

Using it via the API

Call it like any OpenAI endpoint

Once AxForge deploys flux-1-lite-alpha for you, it answers on the OpenAI-compatible API — the same base URL and keys as every other model. (flux-1-lite-alpha below is illustrative; you get the exact model name on deployment.)

$ curl -sS https://api.axforge.ai/v1/images/generations \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AXFORGE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"flux-1-lite-alpha","prompt":"a red bicycle","size":"1024x1024"}'

Create an account — your API key is available in the console. 5M tokens/month currently included with every new account at launch.

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