# OpenAI Image API vs Recraft API

> OpenAI Image API has a score of 72.7 (BB) against Recraft API's 53 (D). Both do image generate. The largest gap is security & auth, 55 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-04

OpenAI Image API has a score of 72.7 (BB) against Recraft API's 53 (D). Both do image generate. The largest gap is security & auth, 55 points.

- OpenAI Image API: grade BB, 72.7/100, rank #67 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openai-image-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openai-image-api.json
- Recraft API: grade D, 53/100, rank #338 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/recraft.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/recraft.json

## Which one, for what

Pick OpenAI Image API for reliability (+10), schema & documentation (+26), agent ergonomics (+10), security & auth (+55), maintenance & community (+31), transparency & trust (+31).

Pick Recraft API for payments & pricing (+10).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | OpenAI Image API | Recraft API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 70 | OpenAI Image API +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 90 | 64 | OpenAI Image API +26 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 62 | OpenAI Image API +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 85 | 30 | OpenAI Image API +55 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 30 | Recraft API +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 48 | OpenAI Image API +31 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 92 | 61 | OpenAI Image API +31 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **72.7 · BB** | **53 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | OpenAI Image API | Recraft API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | OpenAI | Recraft |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.openai.com/v1` | `https://external.api.recraft.ai/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) | none |
| Tools exposed | none | 9 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-22 | none |
| Popularity | 31k stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**OpenAI Image API.** Generation, mask edits and multi-reference edits on the same models, via the Image API or the Responses tool. No per-image price for GPT Image 2.5, and the cost calculator doesn't cover it.

**Recraft API.** Native SVG vector generation, not traced raster. No changelog and no error reference.

## Before you call either

### OpenAI Image API

1. Pin `quality` and `size`. `auto` makes cost and latency vary per call
2. Read `usage` in the response to track image tokens, it's the only cost signal for GPT Image 2.5
3. Don't retry `moderation_blocked` or `image_generation_user_error`. Change the prompt first
4. Honour `Retry-After` on 429 and add jitter, image limits are per minute and low at tier 1
5. Move off gpt-image-1 before 2026-10-23 and off 1-mini, 1.5 and chatgpt-image-latest before 2026-12-01

### Recraft API

1. Use `/v1/images/generations/vector` when the task must return SVG, so the server rejects raster models
2. Ask for `b64_json` or `multipart` if you can't fetch the URL within a day
3. Name `recraftv4_1_flash` for drafts at $0.007. The default `recraftv4_1` costs $0.035
4. Stay under 100 images a minute and 5 requests a second per user
5. Point the OpenAI SDK at `https://external.api.recraft.ai/v1`, but expect some parameters to be ignored

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