Model reference · open weights
stable-diffusion-xl-refiner-1.0 is an open-weight image model from Stability AI. stable-diffusion-xl-refiner-1.0 (FP32) weighs 6.2 GB; the smallest configuration that runs it is RTX 3060 12 GB.
Summary of the stabilityai/stable-diffusion-xl-refiner-1.0 model card, 2026-10-01
What it is
| Released by | Stability AI |
|---|---|
| Released | 2023-07-26 |
| Parameters | 2.3B |
| VRAM | 6.2 GB for the weights |
What it runs on
| Card | One image | Memory |
|---|---|---|
| RTX 3060 12 GB | tight (encoders offloaded) | 11.6 GB |
| RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB | fits | 15.4 GB |
| RTX 3090 24 GB | fits | 23.4 GB |
| RTX 4090 24 GB | fits | 23.4 GB |
| RTX 5090 32 GB | fits | 31.0 GB |
| L40S 48 GB | fits | 44.0 GB |
| A100 80 GB | fits | 78.2 GB |
| H100 80 GB | fits | 78.1 GB |
| RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell 96 GB | fits | 93.8 GB |
| DGX Spark (GB10) 128 GB unified | fits | 107 GB |
| H200 141 GB | fits | 138 GB |
| B200 180 GB | fits | 176 GB |
From the model card
SDXL consists of an ensemble of experts pipeline for latent diffusion: In a first step, the base model (available here: https://huggingface.co/stabilityai/stable-diffusion-xl-base-1.0) is used to generate (noisy) latents, which are then further processed with a refinement model specialized for the final denoising steps. Note that the base model can be used as a standalone module.
Alternatively, we can use a two-stage pipeline as follows: First, the base model is used to generate latents of the desired output size. In the second step, we use a specialized high-resolution model and apply a technique called SDEdit (https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.01073, also known as "img2img") to the latents generated in the first step, using the same prompt. This technique is slightly slower than the first one, as it requires more function evaluations.
Source code is available at https://github.com/Stability-AI/generative-models .
For research purposes, we recommned our generative-models Github repository (https://github.com/Stability-AI/generative-models), which implements the most popoular diffusion frameworks (both training and inference) and for which new functionalities like distillation will be added over time.
Clipdrop provides free SDXL inference.
The chart above evaluates user preference for SDXL (with and without refinement) over SDXL 0.9 and Stable Diffusion 1.5 and 2.1. The SDXL base model performs significantly better than the previous variants, and the model combined with the refinement module achieves the best overall performance.
Make sure to upgrade diffusers to >= 0.18.0:
pip install diffusers --upgrade
In addition make sure to install transformers, safetensors, accelerate as well as the invisible watermark:
pip install invisible_watermark transformers accelerate safetensors
Yon can then use the refiner to improve images.
import torch
from diffusers import StableDiffusionXLImg2ImgPipeline
from diffusers.utils import load_image
pipe = StableDiffusionXLImg2ImgPipeline.from_pretrained(
"stabilityai/stable-diffusion-xl-refiner-1.0", torch_dtype=torch.float16, variant="fp16", use_safetensors=True
)
pipe = pipe.to("cuda")
url = "https://huggingface.co/datasets/patrickvonplaten/images/resolve/main/aa_xl/000000009.png"
init_image = load_image(url).convert("RGB")
prompt = "a photo of an astronaut riding a horse on mars"
image = pipe(prompt, image=init_image).images
When using torch >= 2.0, you can improve the inference speed by 20-30% with torch.compile. Simple wrap the unet with torch compile before running the pipeline:
pipe.unet = torch.compile(pipe.unet, mode="reduce-overhead", fullgraph=True)
If you are limited by GPU VRAM, you can enable cpu offloading by calling pipe.enable_model_cpu_offload
instead of .to("cuda"):
- pipe.to("cuda")
+ pipe.enable_model_cpu_offload()
For more advanced use cases, please have a look at the docs.
The model is intended for research purposes only. Possible research areas and tasks include
Excluded uses are described below.
The model was not trained to be factual or true representations of people or events, and therefore using the model to generate such content is out-of-scope for the abilities of this model.
While the capabilities of image generation models are impressive, they can also reinforce or exacerbate social biases.
Quoted from the model card on Hugging Face. The full card is behind the Hugging Face link above.
Running it yourself
Rent a machine by the hour. ComfyUI is installed on it. Open ComfyUI through the tunnel, then Templates → SDXL Simple: it loads ComfyUI's own build of this model, the files above.
# on your rented machine: pip install diffusers transformers accelerate
import torch
from diffusers import DiffusionPipeline
from diffusers.utils import load_image
pipe = DiffusionPipeline.from_pretrained("stabilityai/stable-diffusion-xl-refiner-1.0", torch_dtype=torch.bfloat16).to("cuda")
start = load_image("/workspace/in.png")
image = pipe(prompt="the same scene at golden hour", image=start).images[0]
image.save("/workspace/out.png")
# on your rented machine (the ssh line is on its page in the console)
# get REPO FILE FOLDER: one file into /workspace/models/FOLDER, where ComfyUI loads it from
get() { hf download "$1" "$2" --local-dir /workspace/hf-files && mkdir -p "/workspace/models/$3" && mv "/workspace/hf-files/$2" "/workspace/models/$3/$4"; }
# the files of the template “SDXL Simple” (12.1 GB)
get stabilityai/stable-diffusion-xl-base-1.0 sd_xl_base_1.0.safetensors checkpoints
get stabilityai/stable-diffusion-xl-refiner-1.0 sd_xl_refiner_1.0.safetensors checkpoints
start-comfyui
# on your computer, in a second terminal: ComfyUI in your browser at http://localhost:8188
# HOST and PORT are your machine's, from its page in the console
ssh -L 8188:localhost:8188 dev@HOST -p PORT