StarryAI vs. Playground AI - Which One is Better for You?

Written by Tanja Lepcheska We Tested

Linkedin - 12 min read

If you’ve landed on this page, you are probably looking for an answer to which one of these AI-image generator models - Starry AI & Playground AI is better regarding features, results, and ease of use.

Lucky you, every information concerning you will find everything in this post.

Here, I will tackle the two popular AI image generators, Starry AI and Playground AI, and make a parallel between them so you know what fits your needs better.

Stay until the end to see the verdict and decide which works for you.

Starry AI vs. Playground AI - What are they?

Starry AI and Playground AI are artificial intelligence tools for generating images based on user prompts. They can create images from scratch or modify existing ones in creative ways. The images can range from realistic photos to paintings or abstract designs.

Check out: StarryAI vs. Diffusion Art - Which one is better for you?

What is Starry AI?

Starry AI is an AI image-generator platform that generates different images once the user enters a certain text prompt.

It uses two AI models, Altair and Orion, to create art, Altair uses the model VQGAN-CLIP to generate images, and Orion uses a CLIP-GUIDED Diffusion technique to create images.

What is Playground AI?

Playground AI is a web-based app for creating AI art based on textual description (prompt), just like the other AI image generators. It allows users to create images based on the prompts they give it and uses Playground V1, Stable Diffusion, and DALL-E 2 models to make those images.

Comparison table Starry AI vs. Playground AI

Starry AI features

  • It has an intuitive web-based interface with pre-built features that simplify image creation for users struggling to describe specific details.
  • The app has web and app versions available for iOS and Android devices.
  • The AI art generator app uses two AI models (Altair & Orion).
  • It offers a prompt builder, a style library, options for selecting canvas size, options for creating variations, and an option to upload an existing image and make variations.
  • It takes a few minutes to generate an image.

Playground AI features

  • It generates images from text or image prompts in various styles and has an extensive style library.
  • Offers high-quality images, detailed and photorealistic images with dynamic lighting and volumetric effects.
  • It offers many customization options, and you can adjust them based on your preferences; it also gives options for 4k and 8k resolution.
  • It is compatible with Unreal Engine, Octane ERender, and Studio Ghibli.
  • Has filters to give images a specific ambiance.

Prompts

Starry AI prompts

When testing this tool, these are some of the prompts I used:

“A young girl with blonde hair who is lost in the big city. The city is San Francisco, and the weather is nice."

StarryAI prompt 1
I was not pleased with the outcome since it didn’t depict what I imagined. Maybe my prompt was too broad, but still, it didn’t resemble the city of San Francisco, or the crowd of a big city, except for the traffic cars. The thing it got right was the girl.

Next, out of curiosity, I set my second prompt in the AI art section for it to generate a more artsy style based on my prompt, and to be honest, I was fairly pleased with what it generated.

Sophia Loren is drinking a cocktail in Italy, and she is looking at her ex-husband Carlo Ponti. She is dressed in a floral gown, and her hair is curly.”

StarryAI prompt 2

It also has a ‘Remove from image’ option that allows you to remove a section from the prompt you gave it.

For example, I used it on the same prompt as the one above, and I just instructed it to exclude;

“She is dressed in a floral gown, and her hair is curly.”

StarryAI 'Remove from image' option


As you can see, it registered to exclude the floral gown Sofia wore and gave her a white dress, which was pretty cool. It worked fine, but she was looking elsewhere, not the man in the image, as prompted.

You can also choose between other styles or add an existing image and recreate an artistic image from that sample.

StarryAI style options

Playground AI prompts

Here are some of the prompts I used on Playground AI and what images it generated:

“Black children smiling at a dolphin in the ocean. They are on a big white boat, and it rains.”

Playground AI prompt 1

I was not pleased with the results because the children looked weird, with inhuman faces and weird-looking extremities; plus, in the first image, there was one white child, and I didn’t prompt that. There was also no rain in the images.

I would say that the images it generated resembled 40% of what I wanted, and overall, they were not pleasant to look at.

I didn’t want to give up after one prompt, so I continued testing this tool with my second prompt on the Stable Diffusion 1.5 model:

“Big chest guy is working out in the gym, and a young blonde girl is staring at him.”

Playground AI prompt 2

After this one, I was convinced that it didn’t suit my needs, at least the free version of it. The image it generated was completely the opposite of what I had imagined and prompted it.

Quick Note: A good thing Playground has is giving you Pro Tips on improving your prompts to get the image you want. Also, they offer you a video to learn how to make portraits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkUjHPQ4nHA

You can also import an existing image and edit it as you want.

Like Starry AI, Playground AI also offers you theExclude From Image’ option, so you can omit a section from your prompt and click ‘Generate’ again for it to give you new results without that part.

Playground AI 'Generate' & 'Exclude From Image' options

Pricing plans

Starry AI

The Starry AI tool offers a free trial that you can use, but it only gives you five free credits per day.
There are also three paid plans: the Starter plan at $8.99 a month, the Unlimited Pro at $31.99 a month, and the Unlimited Pro Max at $63.99 a month.

StarryAI pricing plans

If you don’t want to be tied up to these monthly subscriptions, you can purchase 40 credits (for $0.40 each), 100 credits (for $0.30 each), 200 credits (for $0.25 each), 500 credits (for $0.20 each) or 1000 credits (for $0.15 each).

StarryAI credits

Playground AI

Playground AI offers a free trial for you to try it, and the free version allows you to create up to 1,000 images per day, however, with limitations. You cannot use the Stable Diffusion 2,1 and advanced DALL-E 2 models. In addition, there are limits concerning the quality and usage of certain features after 50 images.

You can purchase the Pro plan for $15 a month and create up to 2,000 images a day using the Stable Diffusion model without any quality limitations.

Also, you can use the DALL-E 2 model for an additional $10 and create up to 8,000 images without its watermark.

Customer support

Starry AI

The Starry AI tool provides online customer support services but not via live chat. You can contact them by sending them your message on their contact page.

Starry AI customer support option

Or, you can look for an answer to your question in their Help Center. You might find your answer there as well.

Playground AI

Playground AI doesn’t offer a 24/7 customer support service, but you can reach their live chatbot any time and be redirected to an answer to your query.

Unfortunately, prepare not to get a solution that suits your question. I tested it with a question about their refund policy, but I was redirected to how to cancel my paid subscription instead of their refund policy.

I proceeded for an answer on the topic in their Help Center > Live Chat, but as you can see, there was still no answer. Or, you can click on the FAQs tab and find an answer to your question.

Playground AI Help > Live Chat option

Customer reviews and ratings

Starry AI

On Product Hunt, the Starry AI tool is rated with 3.7/5 points, and from what I read, people either like it or hate it. I didn’t find reviews on it on Trustpilot.

Playground AI

Overall, I saw on Product Hunt that the customer reviews and ratings about Playground AI were good, and this tool was rated with 4.7/5 points. On TrustPilot, Playground AI was not even rated.

Verdict

Starry AI

I rate Starry AI with 3,5 out of 5. It worked out better for me than Playground AI and gave me better results based on the prompts I put in. The images were more realistic and depicted around 75% of what I had imagined, and that is only on its free version.

Playground AI

I rate Playground AI as 2 out of 5. I think it offers a lot of potential in terms of different styles, filters, and overall aesthetics, but not when you use the free version, as there are limitations to what you can use.

However, it offers numerous options that should be tested within the pro plans, and I believe they offer much better results.

Conclusion

Remember that StarryAI and Playground AI represent just a small slice of what’s possible with AI image generation. The field is rapidly advancing, constantly developing new techniques and applications.

The pool of these AI image-generation tools is already big, and you may have heard about others like Midjourney, Diffusion Art, DreamStudio, etc.

Both Starry AI and Playground AI are worth checking out, at least for their free trial version. I say this because they both offer a great deal of diversity regarding image aesthetics and based on your prompts, they really might depict what you had in mind.

Last but not least, the better you instruct them with your prompt, the better the results you’ll get with the images being generated. The trick is to be precise with your prompt descriptions to get what you desire.

Bonus read: What is Prompt Hunt, and how does to use it?

If I helped you by choosing the AI image generation tool for you, I would be glad, and my work here is done. Now, I leave it all up to you to explore them and be amazed at the possibilities they offer.