# fal image models vs Iris-3B

> fal image models scores 65.2 (B) to Iris-3B's 50.9 (D) for image generation. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fal-image-vs-iris-3b
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fal-image-vs-iris-3b.md (~2,450 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fal-image-vs-iris-3b.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fal-image-vs-iris-3b.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-15

fal image models scores 65.2 (B) on agent readiness against Iris-3B's 50.9 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Iris-3B leads on payments & pricing. Both do image generation.

- fal image models: grade B, 65.2/100, rank #349 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/fal-image.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/fal-image.json
- Iris-3B: grade D, 50.9/100, rank #826 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/iris-3b.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/iris-3b.json
- Best image generation for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/image-generation/index.md
- All 91 image comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/image-generation/index.md

## Which one, for what

### fal image models (B)

Good for: Agents that need to pick between many image models on one key and want price and schema in one fetch.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 73 against 45
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 47
- Agent ergonomics, 72 against 54
- Security & auth, 65 against 44
- Maintenance & community, 79 against 70

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: Billing units vary by model, per image, per megapixel or per token

### Iris-3B (D)

Good for: An agent on a machine with a CUDA GPU that needs Apache-2.0 image generation, relative depth or 4x restoration without a vendor account.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 20

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

Watch for: No package on PyPI, no version tags, no changelog and no CI workflow. Install is a git clone and `pip install -e .`


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | fal image models | Iris-3B | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 73 | 45 | fal image models +28 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 47 | fal image models +38 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 54 | fal image models +18 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 65 | 44 | fal image models +21 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 60 | Iris-3B +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 70 | fal image models +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 49 | 47 | fal image models +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **65.2 · B** | **50.9 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | fal image models | Iris-3B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Platform | Model API |
| Vendor | fal (Features & Labels, Inc.) | Speridlabs |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://queue.fal.run` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 (code and weights) |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-21 | 2026-10-12 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-08 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-22 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | 186 stars, 1.7M npm/wk, 825k PyPI/wk | 175 stars |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**fal image models.** Hundreds of image models, including FLUX, Nano Banana, GPT Image, Seedream, Recraft and Ideogram, on one key. Billing units vary by model, per image, per megapixel or per token.

**Iris-3B.** Code and weights are Apache-2.0, and one Python package runs text-to-image, a 4-step Turbo, depth and 4x restoration from a documented CLI. It is ten days old, with no PyPI package, version tags, changelog or CI, needs an NVIDIA GPU and about 12 GB of weights, and has no server or API of its own.

## Before you call either

### fal image models

1. Fetch `https://fal.ai/models/<endpoint-id>/llms.txt` before calling a model to get its schema and price
2. POST to `https://queue.fal.run/<endpoint-id>` and poll or pass a webhook, rather than holding a call open on fal.run
3. Use an API-scoped key for agents. ADMIN keys can deploy and manage apps
4. Download outputs you need to keep. CDN retention defaults to at least 7 days, set `X-Fal-Object-Lifecycle-Preference` to change it
5. Validate inputs before submitting, a malformed request can still be billed

### Iris-3B

1. Check for an NVIDIA GPU with CUDA and Python 3.11 or newer before downloading. The base weights are about 12 GB, and Qwen3-VL-4B downloads on the first run
2. Exclude `depth/*`, `upscaler/*` and `turbo/*` in `hf download` unless those models are needed. Each of the first two adds about 12 GB
3. Don't pass `--steps`, `--cfg-scale`, `--negative-prompt`, `--order` or `--shift` with a Turbo checkpoint. The script exits with an error
4. Pass `--seed` to reproduce an image, and set `--outdir`, since files are named after the prompt and a repeat run overwrites them
5. Load only exported directories (`model.safetensors` and `config.yaml`). A training `.pth` is read with `torch.load(weights_only=False)`, so never load one from an untrusted source

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, fal image models or Iris-3B?

fal image models scores 65.2 (B) on agent readiness against Iris-3B's 50.9 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Iris-3B leads on payments & pricing.

### Can an agent call fal image models and Iris-3B without installing anything?

fal image models has a hosted endpoint at https://queue.fal.run. No hosted endpoint is listed for Iris-3B.

### Are fal image models and Iris-3B open source?

No open-source release is listed for fal image models. Iris-3B is open source (Apache-2.0 (code and weights)).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fal-image-vs-iris-3b.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fal-image-vs-iris-3b.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "fal-image", "b": "iris-3b"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare fal-image iris-3b`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/fal-image.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/iris-3b.json

## Other comparisons with fal image models or Iris-3B

- [Adobe Firefly API vs fal image models](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adobe-firefly-vs-fal-image.md)
- [Adobe Firefly API vs Iris-3B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adobe-firefly-vs-iris-3b.md)
- [Black Forest Labs FLUX API vs fal image models](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/black-forest-labs-vs-fal-image.md)
- [Black Forest Labs FLUX API vs Iris-3B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/black-forest-labs-vs-iris-3b.md)
- [Bria API vs fal image models](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bria-vs-fal-image.md)
- [Bria API vs Iris-3B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bria-vs-iris-3b.md)
- [fal image models vs Google Imagen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fal-image-vs-google-imagen.md)
- [fal image models vs Ideogram API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fal-image-vs-ideogram.md)
- [fal image models vs Leonardo.Ai API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fal-image-vs-leonardo-ai.md)
- [fal image models vs OpenAI Image API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fal-image-vs-openai-image-api.md)
- [fal image models vs Qwen-Image 2.1 (Model Studio)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fal-image-vs-qwen-image-2-1.md)
- [fal image models vs Recraft API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fal-image-vs-recraft.md)
- [fal image models vs Replicate image models](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fal-image-vs-replicate-image.md)
- [fal image models vs Seedream on BytePlus ModelArk](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fal-image-vs-seedream-on-byteplus-modelark.md)
- [fal image models vs Stability AI Image API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fal-image-vs-stability-ai-image.md)
- [Google Imagen vs Iris-3B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-imagen-vs-iris-3b.md)
- [Ideogram API vs Iris-3B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ideogram-vs-iris-3b.md)
- [Iris-3B vs Leonardo.Ai API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/iris-3b-vs-leonardo-ai.md)
- [Iris-3B vs OpenAI Image API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/iris-3b-vs-openai-image-api.md)
- [Iris-3B vs Qwen-Image 2.1 (Model Studio)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/iris-3b-vs-qwen-image-2-1.md)
- [Iris-3B vs Recraft API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/iris-3b-vs-recraft.md)
- [Iris-3B vs Replicate image models](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/iris-3b-vs-replicate-image.md)
- [Iris-3B vs Seedream on BytePlus ModelArk](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/iris-3b-vs-seedream-on-byteplus-modelark.md)
- [Iris-3B vs Stability AI Image API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/iris-3b-vs-stability-ai-image.md)