Krea AI: the platform and its models Krea 2 and Krea 3

What is Krea AI

Krea is one word with two meanings. The first is the platform krea.ai: a web app that puts image, video, and 3D models from different labs in one interface, including Flux, Nano Banana, Seedream, Kling, and Runway. The second is the lab’s own models, which it trains itself. Reviews from 2024–2025 describe Krea as “an aggregator with Flux inside,” but since 2026 Krea has its own model line, and Krea 3 is the default model in its app.

Besides generation, the platform has Realtime, where the image changes as you draw, an Enhancer for upscaling photos and video, training your own styles (Train), 3D scenes, and lip sync on video. This page is about Krea’s own models.

Model	Date	What it is
Krea 1	2025	Krea’s first model, trained with Black Forest Labs against the “AI look”: waxy skin and blurred backgrounds
FLUX.1 Krea [dev]	July 31, 2025	Open version of Krea 1, compatible with FLUX.1-dev tools
Krea Realtime 14B	October 15, 2025	A video model that generates a long clip in real time
Krea 2 Medium and Large	May 12, 2026	Krea’s first model trained from scratch: style from references and moodboards
Krea 2 Turbo	June 3, 2026	Fast Krea 2, an image in about 2 seconds
Krea 2 Raw and Turbo (weights)	June 23, 2026	Open weights, 12 billion parameters, and a technical report
Krea 3	October 15, 2026	An edit and generation model at native 2K, edits in under 8 seconds

What Krea 3 can do

Krea 3 changes a finished image from text and references, and leaves alone anything the prompt doesn’t mention. Krea shows four scenarios.

A scene around the product. A white packshot becomes a campaign frame, while the label, logo, and package shape stay the same.

A targeted edit. In Krea’s example, the sofa, chairs, and table in a room change, while the rug, the view from the window, and the person in the corner stay put.

The same person across a series. Several references hold the face while the pose, street, and light change.

Sketch to photo. Krea 3 turns a marker drawing, or a drawing with a color palette, into a photograph without moving the camera or the architecture.

Generation from scratch. References are optional: from one prompt, Krea 3 draws an image at 1K or 2K, in 10 aspect ratios from 1:1 to 21:9.

Edit regions in the API. The regions field takes up to 24 rectangles. A box on the first image is where to edit; boxes on the others are where to take the object from. In the prompt you name the area @label or by number, @1, @2, and each box can have its own instruction of up to 600 characters.

Two thinking modes. In the API they are fast and high. On leaderboards Krea 3 appears as Fast, which is the default, and Ultra, and Ultra is clearly stronger.

What Krea 2 can do

Krea 2 is an image generator built for style, not for editing. It launched on May 12, 2026, and was the first Krea model trained from scratch.

• Style references. One or more images set the manner: texture, palette, light.
• Moodboard. A set of dozens of images sets the mood of a series. One moodboard per request.
• Two versions. Medium is more stable and stronger at illustration, anime, and painting. Large is more than twice the size, gives a more “raw” texture, and is stronger at photorealism.
• Turbo. An image in about 2 seconds. Styles, moodboards, and LoRA work. For the final polish, Krea recommends Medium or Large.
• LoRA. Since May 21, 2026, you can train your own Krea 2 style on the platform from a small set of images.
• Open weights. Raw is the base for fine-tuning and research. Turbo is the 8-step fast version. Both have 12 billion parameters, under community and enterprise licenses.

In the API, Krea 2 still generates at 1K only, in 8 aspect ratios from 1:1 to 2.35:1. Krea 3 inherited Krea 2’s eye for style: when you edit, painting, vector, and ink stay in their own technique.

What Krea is good for

• Product listings and ads — Krea 3 places the product in a new scene and doesn’t distort the label.
• Series with one character — Krea 3 holds the face from several references.
• Interiors and architecture — targeted furniture replacement and sketch to photo. On Design Arena, Krea 3 is second in Architecture.
• Illustration in one style — Krea 2 from a moodboard or your own LoRA.
• Quick drafts — Krea 2 Turbo in 2 seconds.
• Edits at volume — a 2K edit on Krea 3 costs $0.06, half the price of Nano Banana Pro on Krea’s price list.

Krea vs. alternatives

	Krea 3	Nano Banana Pro	Nano Banana 2.1	GPT Image 2
Resolution	1K, 2K	1K, 2K, 4K	1K, 2K, 4K	up to 3840 px
References	up to 6 (up to 8 in the API)	up to 14	up to 14	several, with a mask
Edit time, per Krea	under 8 s (Krea’s claim)	33 s (median)	—	90 s (median)
Price of a 2K image, per Krea	$0.06	$0.135	—	$0.22
Strength	fast, cheap edits; product and face	accuracy and text, 4K	4K, 15 aspect ratios	prompt accuracy, mask

Other models’ times are the median on the Krea platform from September 24 to October 1, 2026, with queue time and no references. “Under 8 seconds” is Krea’s wording for its own edits. It isn’t the same measurement.

On edit leaderboards, Krea 3 went straight into the top of the lists. On October 20, 2026, Ultra mode was 4th in Arena Multi-Image Edit (preliminary, 2,991 votes), 5th on Artificial Analysis — in a statistical tie with Nano Banana 2.1 — and 4th of 51 on Design Arena. Fast mode is 11th on Artificial Analysis. Krea 3 isn’t on text-to-image leaderboards yet.

How to write prompts for Krea

• Start with what stays: “keep the bottle and the label unchanged.” Krea calls this the main step for an edit.
• Describe the replacement like a photographer: scene, light, camera — “wet stone by a stream, morning sun from the side, a macro lens.”
• Name each image’s role: “image 1 is the room, image 2 is the sofa.”
• One change, the word “only”: “remove only the woman in the red coat.”
• For a sketch, put the palette next to the drawing: Krea 3 carries color swatches on the same sheet into the photo.
• For Krea 2, show the style with images, not words: 3–5 references in one manner work better than a list of style names.

More ways to replace backgrounds and objects are in the AI photo editor guide. Scenes for marketplaces are in the article on AI product images for ecommerce.

Is Krea free?

The free plan on krea.ai gives 100 compute units a day, and they refresh every day. By Krea’s estimate, that’s about 5 Krea 3 images, 5 Krea 2 Large images, 11 Krea 2 Medium images, or 50 Krea 2 Turbo images a day. Paid plans are Basic at $9, Pro at $35, Max at $105, and Business at $200 a month, cheaper if you pay for the year.

krea.ai works in the browser. A commercial license is guaranteed on paid plans. On the free plan, what Krea writes about a commercial license is contradictory.

How to use Krea in AI2Face

Krea models are available in the AI2Face generator. Upload a product or character photo, write the edit, and run it on Krea 3 and, beside it, on Nano Banana Pro and GPT Image, so you can pick the best result. The cost of each generation is shown before you start. You can pay by card or crypto, and credits from packs don’t expire. New accounts get welcome credits after you sign up.

Limitations

• Krea 3 stops at 2K. For print and large formats, Nano Banana Pro and Nano Banana 2.1 go to 4K.
• Not real time. The fastest Krea 3 setup finishes an edit in 4–5 seconds. Instant edits aren’t here yet.
• It doesn’t read marks on the image. Krea is only teaching the model to understand circled areas and notes drawn on a photo. For now you set the exact area with bounding boxes in the API.
• Krea 2 is 1K only, and one moodboard per request.
• Speed is Krea’s data. There is no independent measurement of “under 8 seconds,” and the Arena rankings are still preliminary.

Bottom line

Krea 3 is a good choice for edits at volume: a product in a new scene, a series with one face, a furniture swap, sketch to photo — fast, at $0.06 for 2K. Use Krea 2 when a series needs one style from a moodboard or your own LoRA, and Turbo for drafts. For 4K, complex text in the image, and the highest accuracy, Nano Banana Pro and Nano Banana 2.1 are stronger. The launch of Krea 3 and the measurements are in the news post Krea 3: photo edits in 8 seconds. Run one edit on Krea 3 and Nano Banana Pro in AI2Face and compare.