Every comparison of AI video models turns into a taste argument about which one looks better. That is genuinely hard to settle — output quality varies by prompt, by subject, and by what you are trying to achieve.
So this compares them on the things that are not subjective: what each model will and will not let you do. Those constraints eliminate most of the choice for you before aesthetics enter the picture.
The constraints that decide it
| Model | Max resolution | Duration | Native audio | Image-to-video | First/last frame |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seedance 2.5 | 1080p | 4–30s | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Seedance 2.0 | 4K | 4–15s | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Veo 3.1 | 1080p | 4–8s (steps of 2) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Veo 3.1 Fast | 1080p | 4–8s (steps of 2) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Kling 3.0 | 4K | 3–15s | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash | 4K | 4–10s (steps of 2) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Wan 2.6 | 1080p | 5–15s (steps of 5) | No | Yes only | Yes |
| PixVerse V6 | 1080p | 1–15s | Yes | Yes only | Yes |
| Grok Imagine 1.5 | 1080p | 6–30s | Yes | No | No |
| Seedance 1.5 Pro | 1080p | 5 or 10s | No | Yes | Yes |
| Runway Gen-4 | 1080p | 5 or 10s | No | Yes | Yes |
Read that table with your actual brief in mind and the list usually collapses to two or three candidates.
Choose by the job
You need a shot longer than 15 seconds
Seedance 2.5 or Grok Imagine 1.5. They are the only two that reach 30 seconds in a single generation.
This matters more than it sounds. Stitching a 30-second sequence out of four 8-second clips means four generations that each drift slightly in colour, lighting and character appearance. You then spend real editing time hiding the seams. One 30-second generation is coherent by construction.
The trade-off is control. A 30-second generation commits a lot of compute to a single prompt, and if second 22 goes wrong you re-run the whole thing. For anything where precision matters more than continuity, shorter clips are easier to iterate on.
You need dialogue or synchronised sound
Veo 3.1 is the strongest of the audio-capable models for prompt adherence, which matters disproportionately for speech — you are asking the model to align mouth movement with a specific line, and a model that drifts from the prompt drifts from the lip sync too.
Seedance 2.5, Kling 3.0, PixVerse V6 and Grok Imagine also produce audio. Gemini Omni and Wan 2.6 do not, so plan on sourcing audio separately for those.
If you are replacing the audio in your edit anyway, turn audio generation off. It is compute you are paying for and discarding.
You need 4K
Kling 3.0, Seedance 2.0 or Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash. They are the only ones that generate 4K directly.
Worth pausing on: generating at 4K is significantly more expensive than generating at 1080p and upscaling afterwards, and for a lot of delivery contexts — social, web, most client review — the difference is not visible. Generate 4K when the deliverable genuinely requires it, not by default.
You are animating an existing image
Wan 2.6 or PixVerse V6 are image-to-video specialists. Most of the general models handle it too, but a specialist tends to hold the source composition more faithfully.
PixVerse V6 has the widest duration range of any model here — 1 to 15 seconds — which makes it the practical choice for short cutaways. Being able to generate a genuine 1-second clip is unusual and useful.
You are still figuring out the prompt
Veo 3.1 Fast, or any model at its lowest resolution and shortest duration.
Fast variants exist precisely so you are not paying flagship rates to discover that your prompt is wrong. A prompt that works on Veo 3.1 Fast almost always works on Veo 3.1. Iterate cheap, finish expensive.
You need reference-image consistency
Models with reference support — Seedance 2.5, Seedance 2.0, Veo 3.1, Veo 3.1 Fast, Gemini Omni — let you supply an image that anchors a character or style across generations.
This is the difference between a coherent sequence and a series of clips where your protagonist's face changes every shot. If you are building anything episodic, filter for reference support first and worry about everything else second.
What the specs do not tell you
Three things you will only learn by generating:
Prompt adherence varies more than quality. Some models produce beautiful footage of something adjacent to what you asked for. For narrative work, a model that does exactly what you said at slightly lower fidelity beats a prettier model that improvises. Test with a deliberately specific prompt — a named camera move, a specific colour, a specific action — and see which one obeys.
Motion coherence degrades with duration. Every model looks better at 5 seconds than at its maximum. If a 30-second generation is drifting, the fix is often three 10-second clips, not a better prompt.
Failure modes differ. Some models fail loudly and refuse. Others return something technically valid but useless. The second is worse, because you have spent the credits either way. Whether you are refunded for a failure is a real cost difference between platforms — on TurboMax AI, failed and cancelled generations are refunded automatically.
A decision path
- What is the longest continuous shot you need? Over 15s → Seedance 2.5 or Grok Imagine. Under 8s → everything is available.
- Do you need generated audio? Yes → Veo 3.1, Seedance 2.5, Kling 3.0, PixVerse or Grok. No → turn it off and save the compute.
- Do you need true 4K delivery? Yes → Kling 3.0, Seedance 2.0 or Gemini Omni. Probably not → generate 1080p and upscale.
- Are you starting from an image? Yes → Wan 2.6 or PixVerse V6, or any reference-capable model.
- Do you need character consistency across shots? Yes → a reference-capable model, non-negotiable.
Then, and only then, generate the same prompt on your two remaining candidates at low resolution and pick the one you prefer. That comparison costs a few cents and settles the aesthetic question far better than anyone else's opinion.
Every model listed here is available on TurboMax AI from one prepaid balance, so you can compare them directly without a subscription to each. Live per-model credit rates, resolutions and duration limits are on the Models page.