Midjourney

Midjourney, an independent research lab founded by David Holz, has been distributed since mid-2022 as a closed-source image-generation service primarily accessed through Discord. It stood out for its aesthetic presets and artistic style, and became many designers' first "professional" AI image tool. Quality has kept evolving across v5, v6, and v7, with a product strategy distinct from open peers like Stable Diffusion and Flux — no open weights, but a strong community and brand. In 2024 it reduced reliance on Discord by launching its own web interface.