Seedream 5.0 Pro vs Nano Banana 2

Specs side by side

Price per unit and per clip

Prices exclude taxes and are charged from your prepaid USD balance. Failed generations cost nothing.

Seedream 5.0 Pro and Nano Banana 2 scored almost the same in my ranking, but they are good at different things. Seedream 5.0 Pro gives the most natural photos of people and lets you set the size to the pixel, but it is slow and tends to add diacritics where none belong. Nano Banana 2 is several times faster, returns up to 4 images at once, has 4K and made no letter errors in my text tests.

Key differences

• Resolution. Seedream 5.0 Pro: 1K, 1.5K, 2K or an exact pixel size (about 0.9 to 4.6 MP). Nano Banana 2: 0.5K, 1K, 2K and 4K.
• Images per request. One in Seedream, up to 4 in Nano Banana 2.
• References. Up to 10 in Seedream, 14 in Nano Banana 2.
• Aspect ratios. Seedream has 8 (including 21:9), Nano Banana 2 has 14 (including 1:8 and 8:1).
• Accented text. In my typography test (Polish blog) Seedream over-corrected, adding accents to letters that had none; Nano Banana 2 made no letter errors.
• Content check. Seedream runs a final content check and can reject an image after it is generated. In Jantaris a rejected generation costs you nothing, like every failed task.

When to pick Seedream 5.0 Pro

• Portraits or reportage with natural light.
• Print graphics at an exact pixel size, such as 2480x3508.
• An English-language poster where lettering style matters.
• A key visual built from several product photos.

When to pick Nano Banana 2

• Graphics with text in languages that use diacritics.
• Several variants at once and fast turnaround: 12 s per image in my test against an average of 46 s for Seedream.
• 4K output or 8:1 formats.
• Series where waiting time matters.

Cost in practice

At 1K Seedream 5.0 Pro costs about 12% more per image than Nano Banana 2. At 2K the gap grows: Seedream is about 1.7 times pricier. Nano Banana 2 at 4K still costs less than Seedream at 2K. In Seedream, the 1.5K tier bills at the 1K or 2K rate depending on the aspect ratio (pixel count decides), and each reference image after the first adds a small fee. In Nano Banana 2 you pay for every image in num_images. Rates: from $0.0783 per image and from $0.07 per image (both at 1K); all tiers on /pricing.

Results from my image ranking (Polish blog): Nano Banana 2 8.6/10, Seedream 5.0 Pro 8.5/10. Seedream produced the best portrait (9/10) and the most reportage-like market scene, but each image took 24 to 87 s. Nano Banana 2 scored 10/10 on the accented sign and was weaker on a food prompt (Polish pierogi that looked like gyoza). More examples: GPT Image 2.5 vs Nano Banana Pro vs FLUX.2 and the AI image prompt guide.

FAQ

Seedream or Nano Banana: which is better?

For photos of people and exact-size graphics, Seedream 5.0 Pro. For accented text, fast work and 4K, Nano Banana 2. Average scores in my test were almost equal.

Does Seedream 5.0 Pro handle text well?

Often, and its lettering looks good, but with languages that use diacritics it adds accents where none belong. Proofread every word.

How much is a 2K image?

In Seedream 2K costs twice the 1K rate. In Nano Banana 2, 2K is about a third more than 1K. Amounts for every tier are on the model pages.

Which one is faster?

Nano Banana 2, roughly four times faster in my test on another provider.

Vendor examples

Official examples from the model vendors, not our generations.