Are DALL-E and DALL-E Mini the same thing?

No, DALL-E or DALL-E 2 are the official text-to-image AI models of the OpenAI corporation. DALL-E Mini, on the other hand, began as an open-source research project in an attempt to replicate DALL-E's capabilities on much smaller hardware. Due to potential trademark issues, it has since rebranded itself to Craiyon.

Where can I find DALL-E 2 Mini?

DALL-E 2 Mini does not exist. Many people believe that DALL-E and DALL-E Mini are related, however, that is not the case. The confusion originates from the fact that the names are almost the same. While it's safe to assume that DALL-E Mini will also evolve over time, there is currently no version 2 of the app.

How to Get Access to DALL-E 2 Mini

Are you looking for a DALL-E 2 Mini web app?

Let me guess, when OpenAI released DALL-E into private beta in the summer of 2022, someone sent you a link to an online tool called DALL-E Mini.

You probably thought that DALL-E Mini was a cheaper version of the exact same AI model and that’s why it was free to use.

And now that DALL-E 2 has been released to the public, you’re now looking for DALL-E 2 Mini.

In this guide, you’ll learn about the difference between DALL-E and DALL-E Mini, and we’ll also explain why your search is pointless.

Let’s dive right in.

Table of Contents Show

Does DALL-E 2 Mini Even Exist?

The very simple answer to this question is: No.

The only real DALL-E AI model and app is the one that is marketed by OpenAI.

In January 2021, OpenAI revealed its very first version of the DALL-E text-to-image AI model.

About a year later, they released version 2 (DALL-E 2) to a small group of private beta users.

At about the same time, a group of developers led by Boris Dayma conducted an experiment.

The objective was to find out whether they could replicate the results of DALL-E with considerably fewer resources.

They named their prototype DALL-E Mini and released it to the public for free.

Since the official DALL-E wasn’t available to a wide audience yet and because the name was almost identical, the free tool spread like wildfire and many people assumed that they were related.

And now that DALL-E 2 has been officially released, many people (including yourself) are apparently searching for “DALL-E 2 Mini”.

The problem is: DALL-E 2 Mini simply doesn’t exist.

Key Points (tl;dr)

I’m sorry to say that you are looking for a ghost. DALL-E 2 Mini does not exist.
While the team behind Boris Dayma has successfully improved upon their previous work by creating a model with much more training data (DALL-E Mega), it has already been incorporated into their Craiyon web app.
The only way to use DALL-E 2 is via the official OpenAI website.

How is DALL-E Mini Different?

Infographic showing how DALL-E Mini and DALL-E 2 are considerably different in terms of their image ouput. — Infographic showing how DALL-E Mini and DALL-E 2 are considerably different in terms of their image output.

Other than the name and their purpose, DALL-E and DALL-E Mini share very little in common.

DALL-E Mini is an open-source project and its AI model was trained with a much smaller dataset.

In fact, the dataset is about 25x smaller than what OpenAI used.

To be fair, the team has worked on adding more data and the DALL-E Mini web app now incorporates the DALL-E Mini and DALL-E Mega models.

However, the results are still nowhere near as impressive as OpenAI’s superior AI model.

Furthermore, due to the obvious risk of confusion and potential trademark issues, DALL-E Mini has officially rebranded to Craiyon.

The underlying model is still called DALL-E Mini and can be found on the official HuggingFace space, but the web app now operates under a different name.

If you want to learn more, we highly recommend checking out our dedicated article on DALL-E Mini.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Before we close off this guide, let’s quickly address some of the most common questions related to DALL-E 2 Mini.

Are DALL-E and DALL-E Mini the same thing?

No, DALL-E or DALL-E 2 are the official text-to-image AI models of the OpenAI corporation. DALL-E Mini, on the other hand, began as an open-source research project in an attempt to replicate DALL-E’s capabilities on much smaller hardware. Due to potential trademark issues, it has since rebranded itself to Craiyon.
Where can I find DALL-E 2 Mini?

DALL-E 2 Mini does not exist. Many people believe that DALL-E and DALL-E Mini are related, however, that is not the case. The confusion originates from the fact that the names are almost the same. While it’s safe to assume that DALL-E Mini will also evolve over time, there is currently no version 2 of the app.

Conclusion

It was only a matter of time until the team DALL-E Mini team would eventually ran into problems with its name.

Looking at some of the search trends on Google, it’s clear that many people do not understand the difference between both AI models and falsely assume that they are related.

Changing their name to Craiyon is an important step towards disassociating themselves from OpenAI’s intellectual property and thus avoiding legal problems.

Here at Tokenized, we want to help you learn as much as possible about the AI software industry. We help you navigate the world of tech and the digitalization of our society at large, including the tokenization of assets and services.