All tasks / Comparisons
MAI-Image-2.6 vs Seedream 5.0 Pro
Compared only on public benchmark results, across the 2 tasks where both are listed: MAI-Image-2.6 is a tier higher in 1 of 2 shared tasks, they share a tier in 1.
MAI-Image-2.6
Microsoft AI's in-house image generation and editing model, with a cheaper Flash variant; public preview on Microsoft Foundry.
- Vendor
- Microsoft AI
- Weights
- Closed: API and apps only
- Released
- 10 Aug 2026
- API price
- $0.04 per image (API price listed by Artificial Analysis for "MAI-Image-2.6": $38.9 per 1k images; Microsoft Foundry public preview)
- License
- proprietary
- Last verified
- 18 Oct 2026
Seedream 5.0 Pro
ByteDance Seed's proprietary text-to-image and editing model family; 5.0 Pro is the top tier, 5.0 Lite the cheaper one.
- Vendor
- ByteDance Seed
- Weights
- Closed: API and apps only
- Released
- 8 Jul 2026
- API price
- $0.09 per image (API price listed by Artificial Analysis for "Seedream 5.0 Pro": $90 per 1k images)
- License
- proprietary
- Last verified
- 18 Oct 2026
Task by task
| Task | MAI-Image-2.6 | Seedream 5.0 Pro | Higher tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Image generation Models | A1,166 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) · Cloud | B1,100 on Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena (AA-Image-T2I v2.1) · Cloud | MAI-Image-2.6 |
| Image editing Models | A1,152 on Artificial Analysis Image Editing Arena (AA-Image-Editing v2.1) · Cloud | A1,133 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 | MAI-Image-2.6 | Seedream 5.0 Pro | 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 | 1,133 | 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 | 1,166 | 1,100 | 18 Oct 2026 |
| LMArena Image Edit Arena Arena score (Bradley-Terry rating from pairwise human votes), higher is better | 1,428 | 1,394 | 6 Oct 2026 |
| LMArena Text-to-Image Arena Arena score (Bradley-Terry rating from pairwise human votes), higher is better | 1,332 | 1,255 | 7 Oct 2026 |