All tasks / Comparisons
Nano Banana 2.1 vs MAI-Image-2.6-Flash
Compared only on public benchmark results, across the 2 tasks where both are listed: Nano Banana 2.1 is a tier higher in 1 of 2 shared tasks, they share a tier in 1.
Nano Banana 2.1
Google's Flash-tier native Gemini image generation and editing model with 1K-4K output and search grounding.
- Vendor
- 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
MAI-Image-2.6-Flash
Microsoft AI's cheaper, lower-latency tier of MAI-Image for high-volume generation and multi-reference editing.
- Vendor
- Microsoft AI
- Weights
- Closed: API and apps only
- Released
- 4 Sep 2026
- API price
- $0.02 per image (API price listed by Artificial Analysis for MAI-Image-2.6-Flash: $19.5 per 1k images; public preview in Microsoft Foundry)
- Last verified
- 19 Oct 2026
Task by task
| Task | Nano Banana 2.1 | MAI-Image-2.6-Flash | Higher tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Image generation Models | A1,174 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) · Cloud | B1,119 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) · Cloud | Nano Banana 2.1 |
| Image editing Models | A1,152 on Artificial Analysis Image Editing Arena (AA-Image-Editing v2.1) · Cloud | A1,144 on Artificial Analysis Image Editing Arena (AA-Image-Editing v2.1) · Cloud | Same tier |
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 | MAI-Image-2.6-Flash | 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 | 1,144 | 19 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 | 1,119 | 19 Oct 2026 |