Midjourney vs Recraft

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors.

The short answer

Free plan: Only Recraft (Midjourney has paid plans only)
Public API: Recraft has one; not confirmed by us for Midjourney
Higher Trust score: Recraft — 91 vs 84 for Midjourney
Best fit: Midjourney: Concept art, mood boards and editorial illustration where look beats control · Recraft: Designers who need editable SVG icons, logos marks and illustrations rather than raster approximations
Platforms: Midjourney: Web · Recraft: Web, Figma plugin

From our own records as of each tool's last check. Anything we have not confirmed is left out rather than guessed. How we verify

MidjourneySubscription image generator with a distinctive illustrative house style

RecraftRaster and editable vector generation with reusable brand styles, a design canvas, Figma plugin and API

Side by side

Fact	Midjourney	Recraft
Category	Text-to-Image Generators	Icons, Stickers & Illustrations
Pricing model	Paid	Freemium
Starts at	—	$10/mo
Public API	Not confirmed	Yes
Trust score	84 / 100	91 / 100
Platforms	Web	Web, API, Figma plugin
Company	Midjourney, Inc.	Recraft Inc.
Launched	2022	2022
Last verified	Sep 6, 2026	Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

Midjourney

Midjourney still produces the most immediately attractive images of any generator, and it is still the least programmable. Buy it if you are art-directing by eye; look elsewhere if a machine has to call it.

Pros

Default aesthetic quality is still the reason people pay for it
Style and character references keep a look consistent across a set
Image-to-video arrived natively rather than through a bolted-on partner

Cons

No official public API, and unofficial wrappers breach the terms of service
GPU-hour metering makes cost per image hard to predict, and video burns roughly 26x a still
Images are public by default until you reach the $60 Pro tier
No free trial since 2023, so evaluation costs $10

Recraft

The tool to reach for when the output has to be a real vector or has to match a style across fifty assets, which is where general image models fall apart. For one-off photorealistic images other models are at least as good, and the free tier is a showcase rather than a workspace since everything you make there is public and not yours commercially.

Pros

Native vector output that opens as editable SVG, not a traced raster
Saved styles keep a whole set of assets consistent
Canvas tools for mockups, background removal and inpainting, plus a Figma integration
API priced per image in prepaid units that never expire

Cons

Free-plan images are public and Recraft keeps the rights to them
Subscription credits do not roll over month to month
Vector generations cost twice the credits of raster ones
Plan table on the pricing page renders only in a browser; the docs carry the numbers

Which one fits

Choose Midjourney if you need

Concept art, mood boards and editorial illustration where look beats control
Designers iterating visually rather than specifying precisely
Client work, provided you are on Pro or above for stealth mode

Choose Recraft if you need

Designers who need editable SVG icons, logos marks and illustrations rather than raster approximations
Brand and marketing teams generating sets of assets in one saved style
Developers who want vector and raster generation plus editing behind one prepaid API