Alternatives · Last reviewed October 20, 2026

Luma AI alternatives for video, images and former Dream Machine users

Luma AI (lumalabs.ai) makes the Luma creative platform, which is video-first: its agents generate and refine video, images, audio and text inside projects, and its Dream Machine page now redirects to the Luma app. People look elsewhere because the pricing page lists no free plan and starts at $30 a month for Plus, and because only an iOS app is mentioned. Kling AI and Runway fit video makers who want a cheaper start and Android apps, Krea fits people who want Luma's Uni-1 next to many other models, and Pika fits short social clips. ImageQuarry makes still images only and fits people who mainly refine images through kept versions.

We make ImageQuarry, one of the alternatives below. Luma and each alternative were compared on how you start, video, editing stills in words, model choice, platforms and price, using each vendor's public pages, checked October 20, 2026.

Start creating See how it works

Last updated October 20, 2026

Luma alternatives at a glance

Tool	Best for	Price from	How it differs
Kling AI	Video makers who want a low first month and apps on Android and desktop	Basic $0 with no monthly credits; Standard $6.99 first month (as of 2026-10)	Standard at $6.99 for month one; apps on web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows
Runway	Video teams that want a free start, apps on both phone platforms and editor plugins	Free plan; Standard $15 a month, or $12 a month billed yearly (as of 2026-10)	125 one-time free credits, iPhone and Android apps, Adobe plugins
Krea	People who want Luma's UNI-1 model next to dozens of other image and video models	Krea Basic $9 a month; a free plan exists (as of 2026-10)	Luma UNI-1 plus Krea's own and many other models, with free daily units
Pika	Social creators making short clips who also want images built from many references	Free tier (no monthly credits); Starter $10 a month (as of 2026-10)	Video tools first, an Image Studio with up to 16 references, $10 entry
Hailuo AI	Creators who want several image model families beside a video model, Android included	Hailuo Standard $14.99 a month, shown with a $7.99 limited-time offer (as of 2026-10)	H3 video, Midjourney and GPT Image models, and an Android app
ImageQuarry	People who use Luma mostly to edit stills and want each step kept	Pro $29 or Starter $9, billed each month (as of 2026-10)	Still images edited in words, with versions and branches kept in projects

What is Luma?

Luma's homepage calls it "your creative partner", with agents that "research, generate, and refine across video, image, audio, and text" on its Ray3.2 video model and Uni-1 image models. The app is titled "Creative agents for creative professionals" and promises to keep "full context across every stage of creative work", with Luma Skills, Team Workspaces and EXR export. Luma also says "The fastest creative teams in the world make here", a claim of its own.

Luma here means Luma AI's creative platform at lumalabs.ai, not the video term "luma", and the old Dream Machine name now redirects to the Luma app.

Luma pricing

Yearly billing is $300 for Plus, $900 for Pro and $3,000 for Ultra ("Save up to 20% with yearly"). Team and Enterprise are "Contact us". The pricing page lists no free plan, while Luma's assistant info page says "Free trial credits included on all plans." Prices as of October 2026, from lumalabs.ai. Check the vendor for current pricing.

Product	Plan	Price	Includes
Luma	Plus	$30 per month, billed monthly	10,000 credits, commercial use, edit access for guest collaborators
Luma	Pro	$90 per month, billed monthly	40,000 credits, 4x usage with Luma Agents
Luma	Ultra	$300 per month, billed monthly	150,000 credits, 15x usage with Luma Agents
Luma	Plus, yearly	$300 per year, billed yearly	Same plan paid yearly

Prices as of 2026-10

What Luma does well

Agents that keep the project context

Luma's agents plan, generate, iterate and refine while keeping full context across each stage, and Team Workspaces and EXR export are part of the app.

A shared, zoomable board

The Luma app's board is an infinite, zoomable workspace where you place, group and compare assets in Frames, find them with semantic search, and share the canvas by link with Viewer or Editor permissions.

Edit images by describing the change

Luma's model guide says "Editing is prompt-based: describe the change in natural language", and Uni-1 accepts up to 9 reference images for text to image or up to 8 for editing. Master Reference Assets keep characters, products and logos consistent across variations, and finished work can be exported as EXR files.

Its own models plus many others

Pricing lists Uni-1 at 30 credits per image next to third party image models including GPT Image 2.5, Nano Banana 2.1, Nano Banana Pro, Seedream 5.0 Pro and Ideogram 4.5.

Image utilities in the same place

Background removal, blending, reframing, SeedVR2 upscaling up to 8K and layers in 1K, 2K or 4K are priced per image on the pricing page.

Where Luma falls short

Pricing page shows only paid tiers

The pricing page lists Plus, Pro and Ultra and no free plan, while a separate Luma page says trial credits come with all plans, so the two pages disagree.

A $30 entry price

The cheapest listed plan, Plus, is $30 a month billed monthly, or $300 a year.

No Android app mentioned

Luma names an iOS app on the App Store and the browser app, and no Android app.

Old product names are gone

Luma's assistant info page (updated July 13, 2026) says Photon "no longer exists as a separate product" and describes Dream Machine and Ray2 as deprecated.

Monthly credits reset

The app FAQ says monthly credits reset each billing cycle, and if you run out you set an extra spending limit in account settings, at which point Luma pauses.

Why people look for a Luma alternative

You want to try a tool before paying, and Luma's pricing page lists no free plan.
You want a paid plan below $30 a month, Luma's lowest listed price.
You work on an Android phone, and Luma mentions only an iOS app.
You came for Dream Machine or Photon, which Luma's own pages call deprecated or no longer a separate product.

The 6 Luma alternatives

Ordered by how many of the reasons above each one answers while keeping Luma's main job, video: a free or cheaper start and Android support first, then model choice, then focused tools. ImageQuarry has no video, so it comes last even though it answers the still-image editing need.

1. Kling AI

Best for: Video makers who want a low first month and apps on Android and desktop

How it differs from Luma: Kling Standard costs $6.99 for the first month and renews at $8.8, against $30 for Luma Plus, and Kling lists Android, macOS and Windows where Luma mentions only iOS. Kling IMAGE 3.0 re-edits stills from natural-language instructions and takes up to 10 reference images.

Price: Basic $0 with no monthly credits; Standard $6.99 first month (as of 2026-10)

Limitation: Basic includes no monthly credits and its output is not for commercial use, and membership credits are valid for one month only.

Visit Kling AI

2. Runway

Best for: Video teams that want a free start, apps on both phone platforms and editor plugins

How it differs from Luma: Runway Creative generates and edits video, images and audio in one workspace and starts with 125 one-time credits, where Luma's pricing page shows no free plan. Its Agent takes direction in plain language, Brand Kits store logos, colors and style references, and it has apps for iPhone and Android.

Price: Free plan; Standard $15 a month, or $12 a month billed yearly (as of 2026-10)

Limitation: Monthly credits on Standard and Pro do not roll over, and its typed editing examples are shown on video takes rather than stills.

Visit Runway

3. Krea

Best for: People who want Luma's UNI-1 model next to dozens of other image and video models

How it differs from Luma: Krea lists Luma UNI-1 among its image models, next to its own Krea 3 and third party models such as Flux, Ideogram and Nano Banana, and runs video models including Kling, Veo and Runway. Its free plan gives 100 units each day, and Krea also offers a real-time canvas and a public API.

Price: Krea Basic $9 a month; a free plan exists (as of 2026-10)

Limitation: No iOS or Android app was found on its pages, and the FAQ names only paid plans as including a commercial license.

Visit Krea

4. Pika

Best for: Social creators making short clips who also want images built from many references

How it differs from Luma: Pika lists video tools such as Swap Anything and Motion Transfer ahead of its Image Studio, which takes up to 16 references that you @mention in the prompt. Its Starter plan is $10 a month, with GPT Image 2.5 and Nano Banana 2.1 among its image models.

Price: Free tier (no monthly credits); Starter $10 a month (as of 2026-10)

Limitation: Starter has no commercial license, which begins with Creator at $35 a month, and the iPhone app describes video features only.

Visit Pika

5. Hailuo AI

Best for: Creators who want several image model families beside a video model, Android included

How it differs from Luma: Hailuo AI lists Midjourney V7 and Niji7, GPT Image 2.5 and Nano Banana Pro next to MiniMax Image-01, so you can try several image families beside its H3 video model. Its site lists web, Windows, Mac, iOS and Android.

Price: Hailuo Standard $14.99 a month, shown with a $7.99 limited-time offer (as of 2026-10)

Limitation: The live plan cards were not readable and the FAQ may lag them, and buying credits alone does not remove watermarks.

Visit Hailuo AI

6. ImageQuarry

Best for: People who use Luma mostly to edit stills and want each step kept

How it differs from Luma: Luma's Uni-1 edits an image from a natural-language description inside an agent project. ImageQuarry puts that edit loop for stills at the center: each change you describe becomes a new version, earlier versions stay in the project with their prompts and references, and you can branch from any of them.

Price: Pro $29 or Starter $9, billed each month (as of 2026-10)

Limitation: ImageQuarry has no video, audio or agent planning, and every plan is paid.

Who should stay with Luma

You want an agent that plans, generates and refines across video, image, audio and text while keeping the whole project in context.
You need EXR export, Team Workspaces, or custom fine-tuning through Enterprise.
You work in the browser and on an iPhone, and the Ray3.2 video model and Uni-1 images are what you want.

How to try an alternative alongside Luma

Export the finished videos and images you need from your Luma projects, using EXR where your post-production needs it.
Write down which model each project used, such as Ray3.2, Uni-1 or a third party model like Nano Banana 2.1, since Krea and Pika offer some of the same third party models.
Turn one Luma agent brief into a short list of prompts, run it in the alternative, and compare the results with your Luma project.
If you pay yearly ($300 for Plus), finish the comparison before the renewal date.

Does not carry over: Luma Skills, agent context and project history stay in Luma.

Luma alternatives: questions

Is there a free alternative to Luma AI?

Krea's free plan gives 100 units a day, and Runway starts you with 125 one-time credits. Kling and Pika have $0 tiers, but neither includes monthly credits. Luma's pricing page lists no free plan, though its assistant info page says trial credits come with all plans. Every ImageQuarry plan is paid.

What replaced Luma Dream Machine?

Luma's own pages describe Dream Machine as deprecated, and lumalabs.ai/dream-machine now redirects to the Luma app, titled "Creative agents for creative professionals". If you want a tool that leads with video generation instead, Kling AI, Runway and Pika each do.

Which Luma alternative is cheaper?

Luma Plus is $30 a month. Kling Standard is $6.99 for the first month and $8.8 after that, Krea Basic is $9, Pika Starter is $10 and Runway Standard is $15 a month, each billed monthly, as of October 2026.

Is there a Luma alternative on Android?

Kling AI, Runway and Hailuo AI each list Android. Luma mentions an iOS app and its browser app, and no Android app.

Which alternative edits images by description, like Luma's Uni-1?

Kling IMAGE 3.0 supports local re-editing from natural-language instructions, and Krea has an Edit by typing tool plus an agent that refines across models. In ImageQuarry you describe the change to a selected version, and the result is saved as a new version you can compare with the rest.

How does ImageQuarry compare with Luma?

Luma is a video-first agent platform that also makes images. ImageQuarry is for still images: describe one, ask for changes in words, and keep each version with its prompt and references in a project, on Starter at $9 or Pro at $29 a month.

Kling AI alternativesAlternatives to Kling AI for video and image generation with free credits, phone apps and APIs.Read more Runway alternativesAlternatives to Runway, the AI video tool, for image generation and editing.Read more Krea alternativesAlternatives to Krea for phone apps, credits that last and a simpler editing loop.Read more Pika alternativesAlternatives to Pika, the AI video app at pika.art, for cheaper commercial use, Android and typed image edits.Read more All AI image tool alternativesEvery alternatives page, grouped by kind of tool.Read more

Create an image. Edit it with words. Keep refining.

Refine stills with every step in view

Each prompt, reference and requested change stays beside the version it made, so the path to your final image is always there.

Start creating Already have an account? Sign in