Stop guessing which one. Put them side by side.

The grid says what these tools are. This says what builders did about it — one decision per person, changeable whenever you change your mind.

# Tool comparison — Topaz Labs vs Adobe Firefly vs Black Forest Labs (FLUX)

Source: Kbaise, a directory of tools that work with Lovable projects.
Pick one and tell me why before writing any integration code.

## Topaz Labs (topaz-labs)
- URL: https://www.topazlabs.com
- Category: AI media generation
- Cost: paid — Subscription-only. Gigapixel $29/mo or $149/yr, Photo $39/mo or $199/yr, Video $59/mo or $299/yr. Studio bundle $69/mo or $399/yr. Astra cloud from $19/mo.
- What it is: Long-running enhancement specialist covering upscaling, denoise, sharpen, frame interpolation and deinterlacing across desktop apps (Gigapixel, Photo, Video) and cloud tools (Astra, Bloom, Image Web). Adobe agreed to acquire Topaz Labs in June 2026.
- Why builders pick it: The professional standard for restoring real footage and photographs rather than inventing new ones - denoising archival video, taking 1080p masters to 4K, rescuing soft scans. Desktop apps render locally, so there is no upload cap or per-image cloud fee.
- Trap: Perpetual licences were discontinued in September 2025; it is subscription-only now and old keys stop receiving model updates. Standard plans limit commercial use to organisations under $1M annual revenue - full commercial rights require a Pro tier.
- Wiring: No public self-serve API; enterprise and custom integrations run through sales.
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/topaz-labs

## Adobe Firefly (adobe-firefly)
- URL: https://firefly.adobe.com
- Category: AI media generation
- Cost: mixed — Free tier with limited watermarked credits. Standard $9.99/mo (2,000 credits), Pro $19.99 (4,000), Premium $199.99 (50,000). API is enterprise contract only.
- What it is: Adobe's generative suite, currently on Firefly Image 5, trained on Adobe Stock, openly licensed and public-domain material rather than scraped web images. Now also brokers third-party models and generates video. Credit cost varies by model: Image 5 is 10 credits, Image 4 Ultra 20.
- Why builders pick it: The pick when legal sign-off matters more than raw quality: Adobe offers IP indemnification to enterprise customers, which no other major generator does. Deep native integration into Photoshop, Illustrator and Express beats any bolt-on plugin.
- Trap: Free-tier outputs are watermarked. Consumer plans include no API access at all - Firefly Services is an enterprise sales contract with no published rate card, and community reports suggest a starting commitment near $1,000/month.
- Wiring: Firefly Services API is enterprise-only via Adobe Sales; there is no self-serve developer tier.
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/adobe-firefly

## Black Forest Labs (FLUX) (black-forest-labs)
- URL: https://bfl.ai
- Category: AI media generation
- Cost: mixed — API per image: FLUX.2 klein from $0.014, pro from $0.03, flex $0.05, max $0.07. Kontext pro $0.04, max $0.08. Open weights free to self-host.
- What it is: The FLUX family from the ex-Stable Diffusion team. FLUX.2 ships as klein, dev, pro, flex and max; FLUX 3 landed 26 July 2026 as one multimodal model doing image, 20-second video with native audio, and robot action prediction, still in gated early access.
- Why builders pick it: The pragmatic pick when image generation lives inside your own product: cheap per-image API, plus dev and klein open weights you can run on your own GPUs with no per-call fee. Kontext remains the best instruction-based image editor.
- Trap: Open weights are not an open licence - dev and klein are non-commercial unless you buy a BFL commercial self-hosting licence. FLUX 3 access is staged and gated: video first, image later, open weights last.
- Wiring: Direct REST API at api.bfl.ai, plus resale through fal, Replicate and Together.
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/black-forest-labs

## Rules
1. Prefer the free tier when no budget was stated, and say what the ceiling is.
2. Read the full dossier before integrating.
3. Fetch /api/public/models before writing any AI model ID.

Agents can fetch the same thing: GET /api/public/compare?slugs=topaz-labs,adobe-firefly,black-forest-labs