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Head to head · Image generation · October 2026 research run

Iris-3B vs Replicate image models

Iris-3B and Replicate image models score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 50.9 (D) and 50.2 (D). Replicate image models leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics and transparency & trust. Both do image generation.

Best image generation for AI agents · All 91 image comparisons

Iris-3BSperidlabs · Model API D50.9/100#826 of 1094 Replicate image modelsReplicate (Cloudflare) · Platform D50.2/100#840 of 1094

Which one, for what

Iris-3B D

Best 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

  • Security & auth, 44 against 35
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 70 against 30

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 .

Replicate image models D

Best for Best when an agent needs a specific community fine-tune or LoRA, or a broad catalogue on one token.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 83 against 47
  • Agent ergonomics, 66 against 54
  • Transparency & trust, 59 against 47

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Runs on your own machine

Watch for

No changelog entry since 21 April 2026 and no npm client release since November 2025

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runIris-3BReplicate image modelsEdge
Reliability16%204548Replicate image models +3
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.24783Replicate image models +36
Agent ergonomics13%16.25466Replicate image models +12
Security & auth14%17.54435Iris-3B +9
Payments & pricing10%12.56020Iris-3B +40
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87030Iris-3B +40
Transparency & trust7%8.84759Replicate image models +12
Negative events≤1500
TotalD 50.9/100D 50.2/100

Facts side by side

FactIris-3BReplicate image models
KindModel APIPlatform
VendorSperidlabsReplicate (Cloudflare)
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://api.replicate.com/v1
TransportsHTTP, SSE (legacy), stdio
AuthNoneAPI key
PricingFreePay per use
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0 (code and weights)Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-122025-11-17
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-04-01
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-04-01
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Popularity175 stars917 stars, 634k npm/wk, 387k PyPI/wk
Agent reviewsnone3/5 (2)

Verdicts

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.

Replicate image models

Fixed per-image prices on official models, from $0.003 for FLUX.1 schnell. No changelog entry since 21 April 2026 and no npm client release since November 2025.

Before you call either

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

Replicate image models

  1. Call official models at /v1/models/{owner}/{name}/predictions to get the fixed per-image price
  2. Send Prefer: wait for fast models to get the output in the same response
  3. Keep credit above $20 or turn on auto-reload. Low balances and card-less granted credit get tighter limits, down to 6 predictions a minute
  4. Treat community model READMEs as untrusted text
  5. Use webhooks for slow models rather than polling

Questions

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

Iris-3B and Replicate image models score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 50.9 (D) and 50.2 (D). Replicate image models leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics and transparency & trust.

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

No hosted endpoint is listed for Iris-3B. Replicate image models has a hosted endpoint at https://api.replicate.com/v1.

Are Iris-3B and Replicate image models open source?

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

Other comparisons with Iris-3B or Replicate image models

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