Alibaba Qwen published Qwen-Image 2.1 on 20 September 2026. The interesting part for anyone running models on their own hardware is not the benchmark table, it is the file count: one set of weights now does text to image and image editing. There is no separate edit model in this generation.
The less interesting part, which you should read before you spend 16 GB of bandwidth, is the license. More on that at the end, and it is not a footnote.
What is actually in the box
The architecture moved, and it moved downwards:
- Image model: 7B parameters, single stream DiT, 32 layers
- Text encoder: Qwen3-VL-8B
- VAE: new, 64 channels, RGBA
- Objective: flow matching
For comparison, the original Qwen-Image from August 2025 (the one usually written as 2508) had a 20B image model and a Qwen2.5-VL encoder. So 2.1 is not a bigger sibling of the old model, it is a different and smaller one. Anything you tuned against the 20B shape has nothing to attach to.
New in 2.1 against everything before it: a native alpha channel, up to ten reference images in one pass, local editing driven by a drawn marking rather than only a painted mask, a prefix KV cache to speed up repeated edits, and better typography. Native 2K carried over from 2.0 in February 2026.
Memory
I have not benchmarked this model, so these are quoted numbers, not mine. ai.rs puts the int8 pipeline at roughly 16 GiB in total: about 6.8 GiB for the image model, 8.7 GiB for the text encoder and 0.6 GiB for the VAE. A 24 GB card keeps all three parts resident. On a 16 GB card the usual approach is to push the text encoder into system RAM and let the card carry the rest. The full bf16 weights are a different machine entirely at 33 to 40 GB.
ai.rs also reports 5.93 seconds on an RTX 5090. Their hardware, their measurement, quoted as such.
The three files
The int8 repack from Comfy-Org is three files that go into three different ComfyUI folders:
ComfyUI/models/diffusion_models/qwen_image_2.1_int8_convrot.safetensors
ComfyUI/models/text_encoders/qwen3vl_8b_int8_convrot.safetensors
ComfyUI/models/vae/qwen_image_2.1_vae_bf16.safetensors
Sizes, as Hugging Face lists them and as they measure on disk: 7.26 GB (6.76 GiB), 9.35 GB (8.71 GiB), 676 MB (0.63 GiB). Full bf16 versions of the first two exist at 14.2 GB and 17.5 GB, and there is a w4a8 encoder variant at 6.31 GB if you want to trade quality for memory.
The version gate you will hit first
ComfyUI added support in 0.37.0, merged on 19 September 2026, and it brought a new encode node:
TextEncodeQwenImage21
The older Qwen-Image edit nodes do not fit this model. If you are assembling a graph by hand and it fails at the encode step, check your ComfyUI version before you check anything else.
If you would rather not assemble the graph at all, Locally Uncensored 3.0.1 (AGPL-3.0, Windows and Linux) ships it as a Model Manager bundle called "Qwen-Image 2.1 (Generate and Edit)": 16.1 GB, three files, one click, into the folders above. It refuses politely on an older backend with exactly this line:
Qwen-Image 2.1 needs ComfyUI 0.37.0 or newer. Update ComfyUI in Settings.
Which is a small thing, but a better small thing than a graph that dies two nodes in.
Values that work
Straight from the official template:
- Steps: 25
- CFG: 1
- Sampler: euler
- Scheduler: simple
- Resolution: 1024x1024
CFG below 1 is not usable with this model. If you are used to dialling CFG down on other models to soften things, that instinct will only produce noise here.
Generating and editing
Generation is what you expect: prompt in, negative prompt optional, picture out.
Editing is the part worth adjusting to. You give it one reference image and a prompt, and there is no mask. You describe the change in words instead of painting where it should happen. In Locally Uncensored the mask path is closed for this model on purpose, and the output follows the reference image while the resolution follows the canvas you picked. Whether you find that liberating or annoying probably depends on how much of your workflow currently involves a brush.
What is not wired up yet
In Locally Uncensored 3.0.1, several of the model's own abilities are not exposed. Stated flat, with nothing said about plans:
- Several reference images at once. The model takes ten, the app takes one.
- RGBA output. The VAE has the channel, the app does not write it out.
- Masks with this model.
- A prompt enhancer and the KV cache node.
And across the board, not app specific: there is no Lightning or Turbo LoRA for 2.1 as of 21 September 2026. The old Qwen-Image speed LoRAs were built for the 20B architecture and do not fit. If your habit is to reach for a 4 step LoRA, there is nothing to reach for yet.
The license
Qwen-Image 2.1 is published under the Qwen Research License. Research and evaluation are covered. Commercial use is not, and needs a separate license from Alibaba Qwen.
This is a real break with the rest of the series. Qwen-Image 2512 and Qwen-Image-Edit 2511 are Apache 2.0 and they stay Apache 2.0. So if you are generating assets for paid work, or building something you intend to sell, the newest model in the family is not the one to build on as published, and the older pair is.
Worth saying plainly because the naming does not warn you. It reads like the next version of an Apache 2.0 model, and the terms underneath are not the same terms.
Short version
A 7B model that draws and edits with one set of weights, about 16 GiB of int8 pipeline, ComfyUI 0.37.0 or newer, 25 steps at CFG 1, one reference image and no mask when editing, and a license that stops at research and evaluation. If that last clause does not block what you are doing, it is a cheap thing to try. If it does, the Apache 2.0 entries in the same series are still there.
The longer walkthrough with screenshots of each step lives on the Locally Uncensored blog.
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