The models we test
The current field for each area, with the newest version, list price and whether it works in mainland China without a VPN. Checked 29 Oct 2026; we refresh it before every monthly test round.
Video
| Model | Latest version | Why it's on the bench | List price | China |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seedance 2.5ByteDance | 23 Jun 2026 | #1 image-to-video on Artificial Analysis (1148). 30 s, 50 references, first/last frame, native audio. 4K is announced, not live. | from $0.134/s | Yes |
| Kling 4.0Kuaishou | 15 Oct 2026 | 3–30 s, up to 4K, lip-sync, Omni Reference with 15 assets. Official API is still “coming soon”. | WaveSpeed $0.157–0.235/s | Yes |
| Wan 3.0Alibaba | 24 Aug 2026 | #1 text-to-video on Artificial Analysis (1174). Closed weights. | $0.05–0.20/s | Yes |
| Gemini Omni 1.1 FlashGoogle | ~27 Aug 2026 | #1 text-to-video on Arena; replaces Veo 3.1 Preview. Extends to 40 s. | ~$0.10/s at 720p | ? |
| MiniMax Hailuo H3 / H3 Max | 3 Aug 2026 | #3 on both Artificial Analysis video boards; up to 9 reference images. | $0.05–0.08/s | ? |
| FLUX 3 Video / MaxBlack Forest Labs | Max 20 Oct 2026 | #2 text-to-video on Arena; native audio. | ? | ? |
| HeyGen Video 1 | late Sep 2026 | #4 text-to-video on Artificial Analysis; cheapest strong model right now. | ~$0.015–0.03/s | ? |
| PixVerse V6 | 30 Mar 2026 | Multi-shot from one prompt and on-screen Chinese text, both core to comic and short drama. | ? | ? |
Also on the list: Luma Ray3.2 (HDR, 16 keyframes), Vidu Q3 Pro, Grok Imagine Video 1.5, LTX-2.5 (open weights), Runway Gen-4.5.
Image
| Model | Latest version | Why it's on the bench | List price | China |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst / FlareOpenAI | 8 Sep 2026 | #1 and #2 on both Artificial Analysis and Arena text-to-image. In our 10-poster test (31 Oct) it got all 58 Chinese characters right. | ~$0.21 at max; 0.5 Higgsfield credits at 1K medium | ? |
| Nano Banana 2.1Google | 6 Oct 2026 | Up to 14 reference images (4 characters, 10 objects), so it is the character-consistency benchmark. | ~$0.034 | ? |
| Seedream 5.0 ProByteDance | 12 Aug 2026 | Strongest China-native option; long text stable. | from $0.045 | Yes |
| Midjourney V8.1 | 30 Apr 2026 | Still the taste benchmark; weak on exact text. | $10–120/mo | ? |
| FLUX 3 ImageBlack Forest Labs | announced 23 Jul 2026 | Native 4K and layout control with bounding boxes. | ? | ? |
| Ideogram 4.0 | Jun 2026 | Won a designer typography test; open weights. | ~$0.06 | ? |
| Recraft V4.1 | 14 May 2026 | Native SVG for logos and icons; text unreliable past ~5 words. | $0.035 | ? |
| Qwen-Image 3.0Alibaba | ~Jul 2026 | Readable 10-px text and infographic grids; invite-only API. | ? | Likely |
Also on the list: Krea 3 (15 Oct), MAI-Image-2.6, Grok Imagine Image 2.0, Adobe Firefly Image 5.
Writing, work and study (chat models)
| Model | Latest version | Why it's on the bench | List price | China |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 5.5Anthropic | 22 Sep 2026 | #2 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (58); leads WebDev Arena; most-praised prose. | $4 / $20 | No |
| GPT-6 familyOpenAI | Astra 3 Sep; in ChatGPT for all 7 Oct; 6.1 Sol 29 Sep; 6.1 Terra 26 Oct | Most-used assistant; Sol is near Astra at under a quarter of the cost. | Astra $10/$50, Sol $2/$10 | No |
| Gemini 4 ArgonGoogle | GA 13 Oct 2026 | Best long-document recall and a low hallucination rate. Gemini 4 Carbon (#1 on Artificial Analysis, 59) is partner-only for now. | $2/$10 offer, then $4/$20 | No |
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash-1017 | 17 Oct 2026 | #1 on OpenRouter by tokens; MIT open weights; very cheap. | ~$0.15 / $0.60 | Yes |
| Kimi K3.1 ProMoonshot | 23 Oct 2026 | Best open-weights score on Artificial Analysis (46); strong long PDFs. | $2 / $10 | Yes |
| Doubao 2.1 ProByteDance | 23 Jun 2026 | 382M monthly users in China; good youthful and social copy. | ¥6 / ¥30 | Yes |
Also on the list: Qwen3.8-Max, GLM-5.3, Grok 4.7, Meta Muse Wonder, Tencent Hy4 preview (元宝 for WeChat tone).
“?” means not verified yet. Prices are list prices from the maker or the named reseller and change often; see the price tracker.