What is AI Horde?
AI Horde, formerly Stable Horde, is a free REST API for image and text generation run by Haidra, a non-profit registered in Luxembourg and funded by donations and the NLnet NGI0 Core programme. It owns no GPUs. Volunteers run worker software on their own machines: dreamers make images with models such as Flux.1-Schnell, Juggernaut XL and AlbedoBase XL, scribes run open language models through tools such as KoboldCpp, and alchemists upscale, fix faces and caption pictures.
Anyone can call it with the anonymous key 0000000000. Instead of a price there is kudos, a points system that sets your place in the queue: anonymous users have 0, a registered account starts with 25, and workers earn kudos for every job and every 10 minutes online. The baseline image, 512 by 512 pixels at 50 steps, costs about 10 kudos. Kudos cannot be bought or sold.
On 13 November 2026 the live status API showed 21 image workers and 39 text workers online, 166,394 images made in the past day and 192,358,545 since launch. The server code is on GitHub under AGPL-3.0, so you can run a private horde.
Is AI Horde worth it?
Making pictures with an open model normally means one of two costs: a graphics card that sits idle most of the week, or a bill from a hosted service that grows with every image.
AI Horde removes both. It is a queue that hands your request to whichever volunteer has a free GPU and the right model loaded. It works like SETI@home, but for images and chatbots. You can try it in a browser or call the REST API with the key 0000000000, and it never charges. Registering moves you up the queue, since your position follows your kudos balance and a new account starts with 25.
The scale is modest. On 13 November 2026 the status API listed 21 image workers and 39 text workers, with 1,227 image requests queued. The network still made 166,394 images in the past day, and the FAQ admits that anonymous jobs can take minutes at busy times or time out. The text side offers 30 models, mostly small community fine-tunes for role-play; none come close to commercial chat models.
The catch: privacy works like a public forum. The FAQ says plainly that workers can technically see and save every prompt and result, because the software runs on someone else's machine and anyone can modify it. Workers do not see your username or IP address. The Horde itself deletes a request once you collect it or it expires, except when the anti-CSAM filter or a worker flags it; then it keeps the prompt, account and IP address for a moderator. Any service you build on it must, by the rules, give back at least as many kudos as its paying users consume.
Our take: AI Horde is the community allotment, not the supermarket. It suits hobby projects, bots and people who can share a GPU in return. For anything private, or anything a customer is waiting on, a paid API costs pennies and answers in seconds.
Where it earns its place
A volunteer moderator running a Discord or Mastodon art bot
Let members make images from a command without paying per picture
The bot calls /v2/generate/async with a registered key and posts the result. It costs nothing, but each image is seen by an unknown worker, so prompts should be fit for a public channel.
An indie game developer with an RTX 3070 that is idle most evenings
Bank compute at night to get faster concept art during the day
Run a dreamer worker with two popular models. Each baseline job earns about 10 kudos plus uptime kudos every 10 minutes, which then buy queue priority and parallel jobs spread across many workers.
A computer science lecturer teaching a class of 30 on a zero budget
Show students how image generation APIs work without handing out credit cards
Students register free accounts and send requests with dry_run set first to see the kudos cost. Results come back in minutes rather than seconds, which suits a lab session.
Before you commit
- Setup
- Open the Generate page or send a POST to the REST API with the key 0000000000; register an account for your own key and a better queue position.
- Integrations
- REST API with a Python SDK (horde-sdk), community front-ends such as ArtBot and Lucid Creations, KoboldAI clients, a Godot add-on and chat bots.
- Data and privacy
- Prompts and outputs pass through volunteer machines whose operators can technically read or save them, though without your account or IP address. The Horde deletes requests after delivery or expiry, except flagged ones kept with account and IP for moderation.
- Cost at scale
- No charge at any volume, but throughput is capped by volunteer supply; services that charge their own users must run workers that give back at least the kudos they consume.
- Limits
- Queue order follows kudos; anonymous requests can time out at peak; prompts tripping the anti-CSAM filter are rewritten (under 1,000 characters) or blocked with a temporary IP timeout.
What’s good
- Free with no paid tier and no card
- Anonymous use with the key 0000000000
- Open-source server under AGPL-3.0, so private hordes are possible
- Wide choice of community image models, LoRAs and NSFW settings
- Idle GPUs earn kudos for faster jobs later
What’s not
- Volunteer workers can read and keep your prompts and outputs
- Waits of minutes, and time-outs at busy times for anonymous users
- Only 21 image and 39 text workers online when checked
- Text models are small hobbyist fine-tunes, not frontier models
- Paid services built on it must give back as much compute as they use
Best for
Hobbyists, open-source developers and bot builders who want free image or text generation and do not mind public-grade privacy or slow queues.
AI Horde alternatives
AI Horde: common questions
- Is AI Horde worth it?
- AI Horde is the only image and text API that is free for good, but every prompt goes to a stranger's computer and the wait depends on who happens to be online. We rate it 3.5 out of 5.
- How much does AI Horde cost?
- Free for everyone; no paid tier. Anonymous key 0000000000 gets the back of the queue; a registered account starts with 25 kudos. Kudos come from running a worker, rating images or donating, and cannot be bought or sold. A baseline 512x512, 50-step image costs about 10 kudos.
- What are the downsides of AI Horde?
- Volunteer workers can read and keep your prompts and outputs; waits of minutes, and time-outs at busy times for anonymous users; only 21 image and 39 text workers online when checked; text models are small hobbyist fine-tunes, not frontier models; paid services built on it must give back as much compute as they use.
- Who is AI Horde best for?
- Hobbyists, open-source developers and bot builders who want free image or text generation and do not mind public-grade privacy or slow queues.
- How much does AI Horde cost for a team or in production?
- No charge at any volume, but throughput is capped by volunteer supply; services that charge their own users must run workers that give back at least the kudos they consume.
- Is AI Horde safe for company data?
- Prompts and outputs pass through volunteer machines whose operators can technically read or save them, though without your account or IP address. The Horde deletes requests after delivery or expiry, except flagged ones kept with account and IP for moderation.
- What are the best AI Horde alternatives?
- The closest alternatives we have reviewed are Replicate, fal, Together AI and Hugging Face.
Answers checked Nov 13, 2026.