NovelAI
A platform focused on 2D anime-style art and text creation. The image generation section specializes in creating anime-style characters and scenes, while the story section offers long-form writing with memory capabilities. According to its official website, it is powered by Diffusion V5 and GLM 4.6.
Updated: 2026-10-26
What is NovelAI?
NovelAI is a subscription-based platform centered around 2D creative creation. Its official positioning is "AI Anime Image Generator & Storyteller". The homepage clearly divides the product into two sections: IMAGE GENERATION and STORY GENERATION. The current model for image generation is NovelAI Diffusion V5, which is described on the official website as "Sharper details, more characters, full comic pages — all in one model", emphasizing sharper details, more characters in the same frame, and the ability to directly generate full-page comic panels. The story section is marked with "POWERED BY GLM 4.6" and advocates "an AI that writes with you, not for you". Its difference from general image generation tools lies in its style direction. The official website FAQ states that NovelAI "specializes in making AI anime art" rather than pursuing photo-realistic general realism.
Who is it for?
- Illustrators for doujinshi and comic strips: Full-page output and multi-character illustrations are their core needs.
- Fanfiction creators and OC holders: They need their character images to remain consistent across multiple generations.
- Authors writing long-form online novels or TRPG scripts: The setting memory on the story side is more suitable for continuous creation than general large models.
- Self-published authors who need illustrations: Get cover art, illustrations, and the main text all in one subscription.
Key features
5Anime-style image generation
The official website states that it maintains quality and consistency across character illustrations, scene backgrounds, and action scenes, and can generate everything from soft and delicate styles to dynamic compositions.
Full-Page Comics & Multiple Characters
Diffusion V5 emphasizes sharper details, more characters in a single frame and complete comic pages, offering significant value to users who create webcomics and standalone character illustrations.
Memory-Aware Writing
"Write worlds that remember everything" is a one-sentence summary of the story function on the official website, aiming to keep settings and characters consistent in long-form works.
A writing space built around the way you create, not the other way around
The writing space is designed around the creator's own process, rather than forcing the creator to adapt to the tool.
Exploration & Community
The platform features an Explore section and a Community hub, along with a bulletin board for exchanging prompts and creative ideas.
How to use NovelAI
- The latest announcement on the official website mentions that due to the Diffusion V5 architecture being 2.5 times the scale of V4.5, the server load has increased significantly.
- The official has adjusted the usage limits of subscriptions and the processing method of Anlas (points).
- Users who rely on it to generate a large number of images must read this announcement first.
- Before generation, fix the character settings (appearance, hair color, clothing) and art style tags, then generate images in batches.
- style drift almost always stems from not locking these down.
- In the FAQ, there are two Q&As regarding whether you can use the generated images yourself and whether your privacy is protected.
- For commercial and private materials, please refer to their answers.
- Under the point system, it is recommended to first test the style in small batches before scaling up, as Anlas consumption is directly linked to the number of images generated.
- The footer is mainly owned by Anlatan Inc.
- Before making a payment, carefully read the official instructions regarding subscriptions and refunds.
Traffic & popularity
Data month Sep 2026
NovelAI receives about 3.0M visits per month and ranks #9,483 worldwide.
Monthly visits
12 monthsTraffic sources
- Direct74.2%
- Search13.3%
- Social5.8%
- Referrals5.3%
- AI assistants0.6%
- Other0.8%
Top countries
- Japan34.6%
- United States20.8%
- South Korea19.8%
- Canada2.1%
- Taiwan, China2.1%
Estimated from third-party traffic data.
Similar tools
niji・journeyniji・journey is a 2D AI drawing generator co-developed by Spellbrush and Midjourney, which can generate various 2D-style images such as chibi characters and anime scenes.
SeaArt AIAll-in-one AI creation platform and community, supporting image, video, audio generation and intelligent chat. Entrances to models such as GPT Image 2.5 and Seedance 2.5 are visible on the homepage, allowing you to quickly turn ideas into works and share them in the community.
MangakaMangaka is an AI manga generator that can convert text scripts into manga storyboards. It supports designing custom characters and choosing art styles, requires no drawing skills, and also provides chapter opening animations with dubbing and background music.
ImagineArtAn AI image generation platform aggregating more than 30 models, supporting text-to-image, reference-image-to-image, native 4K upscaling, real-time generation and style-character consistency, covering product images, social media materials and character concept design.
588ku WuxianhuaQianku.com (Shanghai Tuhun Network Technology Co., Ltd.) is a free AI painting and creation platform launched by the company. It provides AIGC tools such as text-to-image and image-to-image, covering scenarios like two-dimensional avatars, product images and graphic design.
Chichi-puiChichi-pui is an exclusive submission and generation community for Japanese AI images. Officially, it is said to gather a large number of AI illustrations, AI portraits and character prompts. Users can upload works, browse trends and participate in creation projects.