Midjourney opens website to all users, offering 25 free AI image generations

Credit: VentureBeat made with Midjourney

After being confined to Discord for much of its first few years and then, in the last year, an “alpha” website for users who had generated a certain number of images, Midjourney, the hit AI image generation service and company, is now opening its website to any users — with limited free trials even for those not already signed up.

New users will be able generate approximately 25 images for free, according to Midjourney co-founder and CEO David Holz in a Discord message.

This initiative provides an opportunity for both new and existing users to explore the capabilities of the platform without an immediate financial commitment.

It also comes as Midjourney — considered by many early AI adopters to be the highest quality, “gold standard” of AI text-to-image generation and AI image editing — faces increasing competition from the likes of Elon Musk’s xAI and its Grok 2 chatbot (powered by Black Forest Labs’ Flux.1 AI model) and the new Ideogram 2 image generator launched today.

It’s also facing a lawsuit from artists who accuse it of violating their copyright by training on copyrighted works without permission or compensation.

How to get started use Midjourney on the web

For new users, signing up is a straightforward process, with options to register using either a Google account or a Discord account.

This dual sign-up method aims to streamline the onboarding process, catering to a wider range of users.

This marks a significant step in making the platform more accessible to a broader audience.

Once signed in, the user can create images in sets of 4 by typing in text prompts and descriptions of what they wish to see generated in the text box at the top reading: “What will you imagine?”

They can also adjust settings by clicking the box with nobs to the right to bring up a pop-over menu where they can control image aspect ratio and use slider bars to control the degree of stylization (how heavily a particular style is applied), weirdness (the randomness of generation), and variety (how much each of the four images generated per set will vary from one another).

On the left side of the website is another column allowing users to navigate to different sections of the site beyond the image creator and editor, including an “Organize” tab for viewing all the user’s previously generated images in a photo-like roll, as well as a “Chat” tab for discussing image generations with other users.

How existing users can log into Midjourney’s website and merge accounts

While users can now create images on the web, Midjourney advises existing users to sign in using their Discord accounts if they wish to maintain a history of the images they previously generated on Discord.

Additionally, the platform offers the option to merge Discord and Google accounts under the “account” tab. This feature ensures that users can sign in using either account type in the future, providing more flexibility and convenience.

Midjourney’s decision to open up web-based image creation and offer free trials is expected to attract a diverse range of users, from casual creators to more serious artists, enhancing the platform’s user base and engagement.