Almost every page ranking for this comparison was written by someone with a stake in the answer. This one says where each fact came from.
Midjourney facts come from Midjourney’s documentation, Recraft facts from Recraft’s, and the page where Recraft argues its own case is quoted as a vendor claim every time.
How this comparison is sourced
Recraft’s comparison sits at recraft.ai/blog/midjourney-alternative, credited to “Anna Abdulina, AI Designer at Recraft”. It is the most useful document on the topic and the vendor marking its own homework at once. Its opening line sets the register: “If you’re looking for a Midjourney alternative because the brief keeps coming back wrong, this is for you.”
Nothing on the Midjourney side is taken from it: those rows come from docs.midjourney.com and updates.midjourney.com, and where Midjourney publishes nothing, the row says so.
Recraft V4.1 and Midjourney V8.2 side by side
Midjourney documents V8.2 as “the current default Midjourney version”. Recraft’s V4.1 is the newest of eight published versions, with the eight variants broken out separately.
| Dimension | Recraft | Midjourney |
|---|---|---|
| Default model | Recraft V4.1, one of eight published versions | V8.2, “the current default Midjourney version” |
| Output type | Raster, plus Vector variants that “return editable SVG images” | Raster: 1024 × 1024 px SD or 2048 × 2048 px HD at 1:1 |
| Vector or SVG export | “Vector images can be exported as SVG and PDF for scalable use” | No vector or SVG export appears in Midjourney’s docs |
| Text inside images | Put the word in quotation marks to get stylized text | Not addressed in Midjourney’s documentation |
| Free option | Free plan: three uploads a day, “up to two images at a time” | “No free trial is currently available in Discord or the midjourney.com website” |
| Entry paid price | Basic: $12 a month, $10 a month billed annually ($120 a year) | Basic: $10 a month, or $96 a year ($8 a month) |
| Private generation | Included on paid plans “while subscribed” | Stealth Mode is “only available on the Pro and Mega Plans” |
| Concurrency at entry tier | Not published | Basic: 3 concurrent image prompts in Fast mode |
One axis refuses to line up. Recraft publishes median latency and a per-image API price; Midjourney publishes GPU minutes and no per-image figure — HD costs “1.3 minutes of GPU time, compared to SD which costs 0.8 minutes”.
The scorecard Recraft published about itself
Recraft’s post runs five head-to-head categories and awards itself four, tying one. Reproduced as the vendor’s account.
| Category | Verdict |
|---|---|
| Font and lettering work | Recraft |
| Portraits and people | Recraft |
| 3D characters and illustration | Recraft |
| Infographics and text layouts | Recraft |
| Photography and scene work | Tie |
The verdicts turn on vector export, legible text, and a portrait brief Recraft says Midjourney glamorised. Its harshest line is about lettering: Midjourney’s output “is not a logo. It is reference material for a logo.”
Two sentences are unusually generous to the competitor, which is why the page is worth reading. Midjourney “deserves its reputation. The photographic quality is real, and the aesthetic confidence is real”, and “Midjourney’s aesthetics have never been called into question”. The complaint is narrower than the headline: the model “is confident about its own aesthetic, not yours”.
What each vendor publishes about price
Midjourney documents four tiers in full: Basic $10 a month or $96 a year, Standard $30 or $288, Pro $60 or $576, Mega $120 or $1,152, with annual billing presented as a “20% discount”. At the entry tier Midjourney is the cheaper subscription.
Recraft’s documentation puts Basic at “$12 per month (billed monthly)” or “$10 per month (billed annually, $120 per year)”, with the higher tiers in the pricing breakdown. Its own comparison post says “Paid plans start at $25/month” — a figure on none of Recraft’s documentation pages. When a vendor’s marketing page and its documentation disagree, the documentation is the one that has to survive a billing dispute.
They also meter differently. Recraft publishes 4 credits for Recraft V4.1 Vector and 12 for Recraft V4.1 Pro Vector; Midjourney charges GPU time and sells extra at $4 an hour.
Worked examples: the same brief on both tools
Both cases start from prompts Recraft publishes beside the output, and both ask each vendor what its documentation lets you do with the result.
A five-word photo brief
Wristwatch, metal and glass, close-up photoRecraft’s model page reports “a sleek editorial shot” — five words in, no style direction given. Midjourney publishes no equivalent run, so the honest comparison is what you can specify once you are there. At 1:1 it returns 1024 × 1024 px SD images or 2048 × 2048 px HD ones, switched on in the settings panel or with the --hd parameter. HD costs 1.3 minutes of GPU time against 0.8 for SD, and a Basic plan’s whole month is 3.3 hours of Fast GPU time.
A vector logo brief that has to stay editable
Handwritten-script vector logo, single centered lockup, wordmark only. The word "Mirello" rendered in expressive brush-script lettering — fluid strokes, natural ink variation in stroke weight from thick downstrokes to hairline upstrokes, slight baseline bounce for a hand-lettered feel, generous swash on the opening "m" and a looping tail on the final "o" that underlines the full word. Closed letterforms with clean interior counters, no rough edges or texture. Strict two-color palette: charcoal black on green. Flat fills only — no gradients, no shadows, no drop effects, no outlines around the letterform. Compact horizontal lockup with even optical spacing. Scalable silhouette with strong legibility at small sizes. No decorative elements, no frames, no secondary text.Recraft V4.1 Vector exists for exactly this brief, and the export is three documented clicks: select the image, click Export, choose the format and dimensions, click Export again. The SVG export walkthrough covers the dialog and the editing pass.
Midjourney has no documented equivalent. Its Editor offers “Upscale to Gallery or Download Image directly to your device”, including a transparent PNG of erased areas — PNG, not paths. Recraft’s blog states flatly that “Midjourney has no SVG export”, and that is consistent with every Midjourney page reviewed here: none mentions vector output.
Where the decision lands
- Pick Recraft when the file has to survive a handoff: a wordmark or an icon set. It is the only one of the two publishing an SVG and PDF export path, and vector generation “is included on every plan, including Free”. The studio walkthrough covers that canvas, and the API guide the code route.
- Pick Midjourney when the image is the deliverable and throughput matters. V8.2 is the default, HD is one setting away, and all four tiers with their GPU allowances are published up front.
- Read the small print on both. Recraft’s private generation and commercial rights ride on the subscription, and free output stays public. Midjourney’s Stealth Mode starts at Pro, and companies above $1,000,000 in gross annual revenue are directed to Pro or Mega.
What neither vendor publishes
- A head-to-head benchmark anyone can check. Recraft’s only percentage — “Precise mode won 91.6% of its head-to-head matchups” — belongs to the V4 Styles family, and its methodology is “available on request”. Midjourney publishes no quality score at all.
- Recraft’s pixel dimensions. One page says 1K and 2K, another 1MP and 4MP, and neither converts the label into pixels.
- A shared unit of time. Recraft publishes median latency per model; Midjourney publishes GPU minutes.
- Midjourney’s per-image cost, and any official Midjourney statement about how well it renders text.
Frequently asked questions
Can I try both for free? Recraft yes, within published limits: three uploads a day, up to two images per prompt, public output owned by Recraft. Midjourney no — a limited trial exists only on the niji · journey app.
Does Midjourney export SVG? Its documentation publishes no vector or SVG export path; the Editor downloads images, transparent PNGs included. The claim that it has none comes from Recraft’s blog, and it matches what Midjourney’s own pages show.
Which one is cheaper to start? Midjourney Basic, at $10 a month or $96 a year. Recraft Basic is $12 a month, or $10 a month on the annual $120 plan.
Can I use the output commercially? Recraft paid plans include commercial rights while subscribed; free output is not licensed for commercial use. Midjourney grants broad usage rights to anyone who has subscribed, with the revenue rule pushing larger companies to Pro or Mega.
Pick by the file you have to hand over, not by the demo that looked better.