Stable Diffusion XL (SDXL) is the successor to the popular image creation AI model Stable Diffusion. The main difference lies in a two-stage structure for image creation. First, a low-resolution image is created, which is then scaled to the desired output resolution using a refiner model. In this article we want to introduce you to the most important SDXL checkpoints. We will focus in the top 10 SDXL models, based on their download numbers on CivitAI. We will only use checkpoints based on SDXL 1.0 – we might take a closer look at SDXL Turbo or Lightning-based checkpoints at a later date.

In this overview we will first briefly introduce all checkpoints. We will then summarize the respective output of the checkpoints in a short comparison. The resulting overview should help you select the right checkpoint for your respective use case.