If you’ve seen AI-made concept art, product mockups, or lush fantasy scenes floating around the internet, there’s a good chance Stable Diffusion (SDXL) was involved. It’s a family of text-to-image (and image-to-image) models built on latent diffusion. Unlike most rivals, it’s open-source and runs locally on consumer GPUs, which is why artists, hobbyists, and studios keep flocking to it. I just finished a full course onboarding to get hands-on with Stable Diffusion, and I want to share what clicked for me — plus practical tips to go from zero to great images fast. Below is a clear, no-nonsense tour: what Stable Diffusion is, where it shines, where it struggles, and how it stacks up against competitors like Midjourney, DALL·E, Adobe Firefly, Ideogram, and more. This is the guide I wish I had on day one.
