Plain meaning
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An open-source image generation model by Stability AI that runs locally on consumer hardware, enabling privacy and customization without API costs. SD 3.5 (2024) ships in multiple variants for different hardware. Its open nature enables a vast ecosystem of community fine-tunes (LoRAs), control methods (ControlNet), and custom workflows (ComfyUI). Competitors include FLUX (Black Forest Labs) and Google Imagen.