Now Nano Banana has a new rival: ByteDance unveils Seedream 4.0

TikTok-owner ByteDance has rolled out Seedream 4.0, its latest image generation AI, claiming it outperforms Google DeepMind’s viral “Nano Banana” editor — officially known as Gemini 2.5 Flash Image — on multiple fronts.

Unveiled by ByteDance’s Seed department on Tuesday, Seedream 4.0 boasts advanced image editing capabilities that place it in direct competition with Nano Banana, which has drawn global praise since its late-August release for its unprecedented consistency and accuracy.

According to ByteDance, the new model surpassed Gemini 2.5 Flash Image in prompt adherence, alignment, and aesthetics on its internal benchmark, MagicBench. However, the company has not yet released a formal technical report backing these results.

Independent firm Artificial Analysis described Seedream 4.0 as a “significant evolution” of ByteDance’s AI lineup, combining the text-to-image strengths of Seedream 3.0 with the editing power of SeedEdit 3.0. Despite the upgrade, it remains priced at US$30 per 1,000 generations, the same as its predecessor.