Latest FLUX Model: Every Release Compared

Black Forest Labs now maintains more model variants than most people can keep straight: three FLUX generations, five FLUX.2 tiers, four klein sub-variants, a set of Tools, and a multimodal frontier model in early access. Ask "what's the latest FLUX model" and the correct answer depends on whether you mean newest announced, best available, or best for your GPU.

This is the full line-up, current as of July 28, 2026, with prices and licences attached.

Sourcing note: every model, price, licence, and date below comes from Black Forest Labs' own announcement posts, model pages, pricing page, documentation, and GitHub repository. Where BFL has published nothing — FLUX 3 pricing, FLUX 3 open weights — this article says so instead of estimating.

What this article solves

The pain point: the FLUX naming scheme is genuinely confusing, and comparison pages tend to cover one generation only. People end up choosing a model that is a generation behind, or picking a non-commercial checkpoint for commercial work.

The differentiator: one table for the whole family, with the two things that decide real projects — published price and licence — on every row, plus BFL's own current recommendation from their documentation.

The newest: FLUX 3 (July 23, 2026)

The frontier model. Multimodal: images, video, and audio learned jointly in one architecture, plus action prediction. Video with native audio up to 20 seconds per generation.

• Status: FLUX 3 Video in Early Access by request. FLUX 3 Image early access "in the following weeks." FLUX 3 Dev open weights on the roadmap with no date.
• Price: not published.
• Use it if: you can get access and you need video with sound from the same model that makes your stills.

FLUX 3 is the answer to "newest," and it is not the answer to "what should I use this afternoon."

The workhorse: the FLUX.2 family (November 25, 2025)

This is BFL's current production recommendation — their documentation states FLUX.2 is the recommended model family for all use cases, including text-to-image and image editing.

What FLUX.2 brought over FLUX.1: multi-reference support for up to 10 images, editing at up to 4MP, substantially better text rendering, stronger prompt following, and more grounded world knowledge. Architecturally it couples a Mistral-3 24B vision-language model with a rectified flow transformer.

API tiers and published pricing

BFL's billing notes: 1 MP = 1024×1024 px, resolution rounds up to the next MP separately for output and each reference image, multiple reference images each count as 1 MP, and images above 4MP are resized to 4MP.

Open-weight variants

BFL describes klein as delivering sub-second inference, over 30% faster than competing models by their measurement, and FLUX.2 [dev] as the most capable open-weight image generation and editing model available.

The previous generation: FLUX.1 (2024)

Still in wide use, and still the default in a lot of tooling and LoRA ecosystems.

BFL's docs now classify FLUX.1 Kontext and FLUX1.1 [pro] as legacy models and recommend FLUX.2 for new projects. FLUX1.1 [pro] Ultra remains the reference for ultra-high-resolution output with a Raw mode aimed at authentic photography aesthetics.

FLUX Tools: the task-specific models

Shipped through 2026 as separate capabilities:

• FLUX Outpainting — extend any image in any direction (announced May 14, 2026)
• FLUX Erase — remove objects cleanly (May 21, 2026)
• FLUX VTO — virtual try-on at catalogue scale (May 28, 2026)
• FLUX Deblur — sharpening, per BFL's documentation

These are the models to reach for when the job is a specific edit rather than a generation.

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Want the output without the model-selection homework? Flux 3 AI is a browser workspace where generation, editing, reference workflows, and upscaling live in one place — no API keys, no VRAM planning. Open the image generator or check the credit plans.

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Which one should you actually use?

If you want the best available image quality today: FLUX.2 [max]. Highest fidelity in the family, 4MP output, $0.07 for the first megapixel.

If you are generating at volume: FLUX.2 [pro] at $0.03 first MP, or klein 9B at $0.015 if throughput matters more than the last increment of quality.

If you need commercial rights on weights you host yourself: FLUX.2 [klein] 4B or FLUX.1 [schnell] — both Apache 2.0. This is the only free-and-commercial path that does not require a BFL licence.

If you need maximum open-weight quality and can license it: FLUX.2 [dev], 32B, with a commercial licence through BFL's Platform or Professional tier.

If typography or precise step control is the job: FLUX.2 [flex], which exposes a steps parameter trading typography accuracy and detail against latency.

If you need video with sound: FLUX 3, once your early access request clears. Nothing else in the family does it.

Release timeline

FAQ

What is the latest FLUX model? FLUX 3, announced July 23, 2026 — multimodal, currently gated. The latest generally available family is FLUX.2.

Which FLUX model does BFL recommend? Their documentation names FLUX.2 as the recommended family for all use cases, including text-to-image and editing.

What is the cheapest FLUX model? FLUX.2 [klein] 4B — $0.014 for the first megapixel via API, or free to run locally under Apache 2.0.

Which FLUX models can I use commercially for free? FLUX.1 [schnell], FLUX.2 [klein] 4B and 4B Base, and the FLUX.2 VAE — all Apache 2.0. Everything else needs an API subscription or a licence.

Is FLUX.1 obsolete? Not obsolete, but BFL classifies parts of it as legacy and recommends FLUX.2 for new projects. Existing FLUX.1 LoRA ecosystems remain a legitimate reason to stay.

Does any FLUX model generate video? Only FLUX 3, in early access.

Bottom line

Newest is FLUX 3. Best available is FLUX.2 [max]. Best value at volume is FLUX.2 [pro] or klein 9B. Best free-and-commercial is klein 4B or FLUX.1 [schnell]. Best open-weight quality is FLUX.2 [dev], licence permitting.

Pick on licence and price before you pick on benchmarks — those two constraints eliminate most of the list before quality is even a question. And if you would rather skip model selection entirely, generate directly in the Flux 3 AI workspace.

Sources

1. BFL API pricing — per-megapixel prices, billing rules, licensing tiers
2. FLUX.2: Frontier Visual Intelligence (BFL, November 25, 2025) — FLUX.2 capabilities, architecture, dev and klein positioning
3. FLUX.2 klein model page — variant table, VRAM, inference times, licences
4. FLUX.2 max model page — top-tier positioning and model comparison
5. FLUX.2 pro / flex model page — multi-reference control, production positioning
6. FLUX 3 — Real World Models (BFL, July 23, 2026) — newest release and launch plan
7. BFL API documentation — current recommendation and legacy model classification
8. black-forest-labs/flux on GitHub — FLUX.1 open model list and licences
9. BFL announcements index — dated release history for Tools and klein
10. FLUX open weights licensing — commercial licence tiers

Scope note: prices and availability as of July 28, 2026. Flux 3 AI is an independent creator workspace, not affiliated with Black Forest Labs. Confirm current pricing at bfl.ai.