Black Forest Labs releases FLUX 3 Image Klein, a 5.6-billion-parameter open image model that runs on 8 GB graphics cards
The model generates and edits images from text and up to 10 reference pictures. It is free for commercial use by individuals and companies with under $5 million in annual revenue.
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- ResearchedWith AI assistance · 2 sources
- AI source checkEach sentence matched to its source
- Editor approvalMayank Sahu · 16 Oct, 13:57
- Published16 Oct, 13:57
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How this was made: researched, drafted and source-checked by AI (Claude, made by Anthropic), then published under the editor’s standing approval. A person did not read it line by line before it went live. AI policy
In short
Black Forest Labs released FLUX 3 Image Klein on 15 October 2026, a 5.6-billion-parameter open-weight model for text-to-image generation and editing. The company says a compressed version makes a 1-megapixel image in about 4 seconds on an RTX 5090 and runs on GPUs with 8 GB of memory.
What was released
Black Forest Labs, the German company behind the FLUX image models, released FLUX 3 Image Klein on 15 October 2026.1 It is a 5.6-billion-parameter model for text-to-image generation, image editing and generation from up to 10 reference images.12
Two versions are on Hugging Face: a base model meant for fine-tuning and a faster distilled model.12 The company also offers it through its API, with prices that it says start at $0.009.1
Who can use it for free
The FLUX Kommunity License allows free commercial use for individuals and companies with less than $5 million in annual revenue, plus research and non-commercial use.12 Larger organisations need a self-hosted licence or the API.1 The model card notes that this does not give blanket permission to sell fine-tuned versions.2
Speed and hardware
Black Forest Labs says:1
- The distilled model in INT8 makes a 1-megapixel image in about 4 seconds on an Nvidia RTX 5090 and under 9 seconds on an RTX 4070.
- The INT8 version runs on GPUs with as little as 8 GB of memory.
- On Nvidia’s GB300, the NVFP4 version takes under 0.6 seconds.
The model card advises always using a prompt upsampler, because short prompts give generic results.2
How it compares
In the company’s own evaluations, Klein ranks first among open models for text-to-image, multi-reference generation and editing, ahead of larger models such as Qwen-Image 2.1.1 It scored 91 Elo points above the previous FLUX.2 Klein 9B model in text-to-image.1 These are Black Forest Labs’ results; we found no independent tests yet.
Tools that support it
ComfyUI, Hugging Face Diffusers, TensorRT-LLM, SGLang Diffusion and vLLM-Omni supported it on day one.1
Fact ledger
How labels workQuestions readers ask
Is FLUX 3 Klein free?
Yes for research, non-commercial use, and commercial use by individuals and companies with under $5 million in annual revenue.
Will it run on my graphics card?
Black Forest Labs says the INT8 version runs on GPUs with 8 GB of memory and takes under 9 seconds per image on an RTX 4070.
Can I use it in ComfyUI?
Yes. ComfyUI supported it on release day.