Stable Diffusion 3.5 Released: Can Stability AI Hold Its Open-Source Ground?

Stability AI released the Stable Diffusion 3.5 family on October 22, 2024, including Large (8B parameters) and Large Turbo among several customizable variants, later moving the inference code to the MIT license to continue its open-source path.

SD 3.5 improves prompt adherence and image quality over its predecessor and offers Depth and Canny ControlNets for controllability. But in our observation, since the SD3 controversy the community's center of gravity has clearly shifted to Black Forest Labs (the FLUX series), founded by the original Stable Diffusion team — and FLUX.2's release widened the gap further.

Whether Stability AI can reclaim leadership of the open image ecosystem with future releases remains to be seen. For developers, SD 3.5 is still a solid choice with friendly licensing and a mature tooling ecosystem.