Model reference · open weights
flux.1-lite 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
| Maker | Freepik |
|---|---|
| Type | Image models |
| Task | Text→image |
| Parameters (lead) | 8.2B |
| Runs with | diffusers |
| Based on | black-forest-labs/FLUX.1-dev |
| Released | 2024-12-30 |
| Popularity | 6k downloads / month |
| Licence | Commercial licence needed |
About
We are thrilled to announce the 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.
🔥 UPDATE 🔥: We have released a new version of Flux.1 Lite 8B. This version is trained with a new dataset and achieves better results than the previous alpha version. The main changes include:
Flux.1 Lite is ready to unleash your creativity! For the best results, we strongly recommend using a guidance_scale between 2.0 and 5.0 and setting n_steps between 20 and 32.
import torch
from diffusers import FluxPipeline
torch_dtype = torch.bfloat16
device = "cuda"
# Load the pipe
model_id = "Freepik/flux.1-lite-8B"
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
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")
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.
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.safetensors
Our AI generator is now powered by Flux.1 Lite!
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},
}
From the published model card. Full card on the HuggingFace links in the sidebar.
Using it via the API
Once AxForge deploys flux-1-lite for you, it answers on the OpenAI-compatible API — the same base URL and keys as every other model. (flux-1-lite 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","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.