Midjourney is still going to be hard to beat imo. Comparing SD to MJ is a little unfair considering their applications and flexibility, but I do really enjoy the "out of the box" experience that comes with MJ.
I use both but StableDiffusion has better control over the workflow. With automatic111 I can generate a matrix of output based on prompt variations or parameter changes. I can also do bigger batches. And I can open multiple tabs and queue up several prompt variation matrices at once, then leave for an hour. I have a laptop rtx 2070 and a 512x768 takes about 20 seconds[0] or so. automatic111 also includes some upscaling AI once you've found the base image you want.
StableDiffusion needs you to be way more specific than Midjourney. MJ will fill in the gaps of your prompt to get a better image. SD usually won't.
MJ photos are higher quality with easier prompting IMO, but with a distinctive style. Even if you ask it to mimic some other style, it has that midjourney feel.
I mainly it for generating setting or character images for a D&D game. I use Midjourney more for characters.
I haven't done it in a while but I was cranking images out at 11s/output on a 3080. But it depends on your workflow, too. I started low res/low samples (32-64) and scaled up or used recursion until I got a desirable result or found a nice seed. I think I was doing 512x916 or something close to that.
With SD you have a lot of control over not just basics like image size and prompt complexity, but also things like how many iterations of which different sampler(s) get used.
So speed can vary wildly depending on how you're choosing to use it. And that's without even getting into the wide variance of hardware.
But generally speaking, it will usually be significantly faster than one image per minute.
Got any way to get individual images in relax mode? As it gives 4 images combined, and upscale is available in fast mode only. So that kind of makes relax mode useless.
MJ quality is significantly worse. Everything has the Pixar look and barely follows the prompt. Its nice for a toy, but SD with Automatic1111 is miles ahead of MJ.
