All tasks / Comparisons

Nano Banana 2.1 vs GPT Image 2.5

Compared only on public benchmark results, across the 2 tasks where both are listed: GPT Image 2.5 is a tier higher in 2 of 2 shared tasks.

Nano Banana 2.1

Google's Flash-tier native Gemini image generation and editing model with 1K-4K output and search grounding.

Vendor: Google
Weights: Closed: API and apps only
Released: 6 Oct 2026
API price: $0.03 per image (1K (1024x1024) output, Standard tier: $30 per 1M image output tokens = $0.0336/image; 2K $0.0504, 4K $0.113)
License: proprietary
Last verified: 18 Oct 2026

Alternatives to Nano Banana 2.1

GPT Image 2.5

OpenAI's image generation and editing model, offered as Flare (fast default) and Sunburst (precise editing) via API and ChatGPT.

Vendor: OpenAI
Weights: Closed: API and apps only
Released: 8 Sep 2026
API price: $0.21 per image (API price listed by Artificial Analysis for "GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst (max)": $210.72 per 1k images; quality "max" at 1024x1024 per AA; OpenAI bills $30 per 1M image output tokens (same rate for Sunburst and Flare), lower quality settings cost less)
License: proprietary
Last verified: 18 Oct 2026

Alternatives to GPT Image 2.5

Task by task

Task	Nano Banana 2.1	GPT Image 2.5	Higher tier
Image generation Models	A1,174 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) · Cloud	S1,220 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) · Cloud	GPT Image 2.5
Image editing Models	A1,152 on Artificial Analysis Image Editing Arena (AA-Image-Editing v2.1) · Cloud	S1,199 on Artificial Analysis Image Editing Arena (AA-Image-Editing v2.1) · Cloud	GPT Image 2.5

A tier spans a range of scores, and small gaps on a leaderboard are often within its margin of error, so only a different tier counts as ahead. How we rank.

Same benchmark, both results

Benchmark	Nano Banana 2.1	GPT Image 2.5	Snapshot
Artificial Analysis Image Editing Arena (AA-Image-Editing v2.1) Elo from pairwise human preference (FLUX.2 [dev] anchored at 1000), higher is better	1,152 Nano Banana 2.1	1,199 GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst (max)	18 Oct 2026
Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) Elo from pairwise human preference (FLUX.2 [dev] anchored at 1000), higher is better	1,174 Nano Banana 2.1	1,220 GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst (max)	18 Oct 2026
LMArena Image Edit Arena Arena score (Bradley-Terry rating from pairwise human votes), higher is better	1,428 gemini-nano-banana-2.1	1,524 gpt-image-2.5-sunburst	6 Oct 2026
LMArena Text-to-Image Arena Arena score (Bradley-Terry rating from pairwise human votes), higher is better	1,328 gemini-nano-banana-2.1	1,425 gpt-image-2.5-sunburst	7 Oct 2026