Fooocus is a free image generator built around SDXL that borrows its idea from Midjourney: you type what you want, and the program handles the sampler, the steps, the prompt expansion and the quality tricks. It still has an advanced panel with styles, image prompts, inpainting and outpainting, but you never have to open it. It was created by lllyasviel and ships with a well tuned default model.

Fooocus is the easiest full-featured local app for Windows users with an NVIDIA card. Choose it if you want good pictures without learning samplers and CFG values. It is limited to SDXL-type models and is no longer in active development, so if you want Flux or video, look at Forge, Invoke or ComfyUI.

No install required - run AI models on the cloud

BitVector Prism is the easiest way to start: pick a model, type a prompt and generate in a clean web app, with nothing to configure. BitVector is also available on Discord and on the web (SpyGlass).

Try BitVector

What you need

Windows 10 or 11 with an NVIDIA card with 4 GB VRAM or more and 8 GB of system RAM (16 GB recommended; Fooocus swaps to RAM on small cards). AMD on Windows works through DirectML and is slower. Linux and Mac (Apple Silicon) installs are possible from source. The default models are about 7 GB.

How to get and install Fooocus

Download the Fooocus Windows package (a .7z file) from the link on the GitHub page and extract it with 7-Zip.
Run run.bat. The first start downloads the default SDXL model (Juggernaut) and the refiner, several gigabytes, then opens the browser.
Linux and Mac: clone the repository, create a Python 3.10 environment, install the requirements and run python entry_with_update.py (see the README for Apple Silicon notes).
To use your own SDXL checkpoints and LoRAs, drop them in models/checkpoints and models/loras, or edit config.txt to point to the folders of another app such as A1111.
Use run_anime.bat or run_realistic.bat for presets with different default models and styles.

Download only from the official links on this page. Installers found elsewhere may be out of date or tampered with. ModelTrends.ai hosts no files.

No install required - run AI models on the cloud

PirateDiffusion is Telegram only and built for pros: thousands of models, LoRAs and workflows driven by chat commands, with unlimited generation on a fixed price plan.

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How to use Fooocus

Type your prompt in the box and press Generate. Fooocus makes two images by default at a quality setting that balances speed and detail.
Tick Advanced to open the panel: choose Speed, Quality or Extreme Speed, the aspect ratio and the number of images.
In the Style tab, pick visual styles such as cinematic, anime or photographic; Fooocus adds the matching prompt words for you. Fooocus V2 expands short prompts automatically.
In the Model tab, select a different base checkpoint and up to five LoRAs with their weights. Add the trigger words from the model page to your prompt.
Tick Input Image to use Upscale or Variation, Image Prompt (reference pictures, face swap, canny or depth) or Inpaint or Outpaint to change part of a picture or extend it.

Tips and common problems

Negative prompts are rarely needed; the defaults already handle common problems. Use them only to remove something specific.
If the first start fails to download the models, download them manually from the links in the README and put them in models/checkpoints.
The History Log link under the images shows every prompt and seed you used, so you can repeat a result.
Check the box Developer Debug Mode for advanced sampler, scheduler and refiner settings when you do want control.

Models you can run in Fooocus

Fooocus runs SDXL checkpoints and LoRAs, including Pony and Illustrious variants, from this catalog. It does not run Stable Diffusion 1.5, Flux or video models.

Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 Models

No install required - run AI models on the cloud

No GPU, no downloads, no Python. These services run the same open source models on their own servers, so you can start generating from a browser, Discord or Telegram in a minute.

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Links

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