Civitai
Community platform for open generative AI models. Browse and download thousands of Stable Diffusion and Flux checkpoints and LoRAs, generate images and videos in the browser, train your own models, and earn from the work you publish.
What is Civitai?
Civitai is a community platform for visual generative AI, run by Civit AI, Inc. from San Francisco and online since late 2022. Its core is a repository of open models — checkpoints, LoRAs and embeddings for Stable Diffusion and Flux — that anyone can browse without an account and download for free. Around that repository sit feeds of images, videos, 3D models, articles, comics, community challenges, auctions, a shop and a leaderboard, which is what makes the site as much a social network for AI creators as a download library.
You do not need a local GPU to use it. Once signed in with Discord, Google, GitHub, Reddit or an email address, the on-site generator produces images and video directly in the browser, and an on-site LoRA trainer lets you fine-tune your own model, kept private depending on your tier. Everything on the generation side is paid for in Buzz, the internal currency: Green Buzz comes with a membership or a purchase, Blue Buzz from daily rewards, so casual use costs nothing in cash. Supporters can also install Civitai Link, a Windows, Linux and macOS desktop app that pushes any resource from the site straight into a local model library in one click.
For developers, developer.civitai.com exposes an orchestration API that submits image, video, audio and text workflows through a single contract while racing several providers behind the scenes, a site API for searching models, images, creators and tags or looking up versions by file hash, OAuth with authorisation code and PKCE including per-app Buzz spending caps, an MCP server, and a closed-beta Apps platform that builds and hosts a web app inside civitai.com from an uploaded ZIP.
The other half of the product is an economy. Creators earn from generation compensation, tips, image rewards, early access, permanent paid access, per-generation licensing fees and Creator Shops, manage it in the Creator Studio, and cash out through the Creator Program once their Creator Score passes 10,000 and they hold a membership. Content rules are strict and published in a Safety Center: photorealistic depictions of minors, the likeness of real people and extreme imagery are all prohibited, enforced by automated labelling, community voting, human review and an appeals form. Unrestricted generation has been moved off to a separate domain.
What it does
- Browse and download thousands of Stable Diffusion and Flux models, LoRAs and embeddings
- Generate images and videos directly in the browser, with no local GPU
- Train your own LoRA on the site and keep it private
- Publish models, images, videos, 3D models, articles and comics to the community
- Sell access to your models through paid access, early access and per-generation licensing fees
- Convert the Buzz you earn into real payouts through the Creator Program
- Call the orchestration and site APIs, or connect an MCP-aware agent
When to use Civitai / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Civitai is the right fit.
When to use Civitai
- Digital artists and illustrators looking for ready-made checkpoints, LoRAs and style models instead of training from scratch
- Creators who want to generate images or video without owning a GPU, using the on-site generator and Buzz credits
- Model makers hoping to monetise their work through licensing fees, paid access, early access and the Creator Program
- Developers embedding media generation into their own products via the orchestration API, the site API, OAuth or MCP
- Newcomers to generative AI who need structured tutorials, a glossary and prompting guides before investing in a local setup
When not to use Civitai
- Anyone under 18: the terms of service set a hard minimum age and there is no younger tier
- Users who need to depict real, identifiable people: reproducing a real person's likeness is prohibited in every context
- Organisations that require a signed DPA, a published subprocessor list or documented GDPR compliance, none of which Civitai offers
- Teams that must keep data inside the European Union: the services are hosted in the United States and declared as intended for US visitors
- People whose main need is text, code or audio: this is a visual platform built around image, video and 3D models
How to use Civitai
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Open civitai.com — models, images and videos can be browsed without an account
- Create an account with Discord, Google, GitHub, Reddit or an email address; you must be 18 or over
- Browse the model library and filter by resource type (checkpoint, LoRA, embedding) and base model
- Download a model for local use, checking the Bespoke License its author attached to it
- Or click Create to generate images and video on the site, which spends Buzz
- Top up Buzz through daily rewards, a one-off purchase or a monthly membership
- Install Civitai Link on Windows, Linux or macOS to sync resources to a local library (Supporters only)
- Train your own LoRA through the on-site trainer, keeping it private within your tier's quota
- Publish your models and images, then set the licence, early access, paid access and licensing fee
- For integration, take an API key and follow the guides on developer.civitai.com
Pros & Cons
Pros
- One of the largest open catalogues of generative image models, browsable without an account
- Genuinely usable for free: browsing, downloads and Blue Buzz earned through daily rewards
- Generation and LoRA training run in the browser, with no local GPU required
- Creator monetisation is documented and the per-tier caps are published in figures
- Substantial developer platform: orchestration, site API, OAuth, MCP, SDKs and ready-made recipes
- Content rules are explicit and detailed, with a published appeals process
- Free Education Hub with beginner guides, a glossary and prompting tutorials
Cons
- The licence granted to Civitai is irrevocable, and public content is licensed perpetually to every user
- No mention of the GDPR anywhere, no DPA, no subprocessor list and no Article 27 representative
- The privacy policy has not been updated since 1 February 2024
- Hosting is in the United States and the service is declared as intended for US visitors
- No data retention period is published, and no deletion procedure is described
- Generation and downloads require an account, and Civitai Link is limited to paying members
- Fees are non-refundable apart from a short closed list of cases, and refunds are paid in Buzz rather than cash
Pricing & Plans
Civitai can be used free of charge: browsing and model downloads require no payment, and Blue Buzz is earned through daily rewards. Paid memberships are billed monthly and start at USD 10.00 per month for the Bronze tier, rising to USD 25.00 for Silver and USD 50.00 for Gold. Buzz may also be bought outright, independently of a membership. No time-limited free trial is advertised. Fees are non-refundable except in the cases listed in the terms of service, and refunds are credited in Buzz.
- browsing and downloads
- Blue Buzz from daily rewards
- licensing fee capped at 1 Buzz per image
- paid access capped at 500 Buzz for image models and 3 permanent gates
- 10
- 000 Green Buzz per month
- 5% bonus Buzz on purchases
- 1.5x Blue Buzz on daily rewards
- 3 private models
- 8 images per job
- 8 queued jobs
- free high priority generation
- 25
- 000 Green Buzz per month
- 10% bonus Buzz on purchases
- 2.5x Blue Buzz on daily rewards
- 10 private models
- 10 images per job
- 10 queued jobs
- premium support
- 50
- 000 Green Buzz per month
- 20% bonus Buzz on purchases
- 4x Blue Buzz on daily rewards
- 100 private models
- 12 images per job
- 10 queued jobs
- VIP support
- Every tier can be bought as a gift for another member
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Civitai handles your data.
GDPR overview
Civitai never mentions the GDPR. Searching the terms, the privacy policy and the Safety Center, in both the extracted text and the archived HTML, returns no occurrence of GDPR, no data protection officer, no Article 27 representative and no standard contractual clauses. The privacy policy, last updated on 1 February 2024, states instead that the services are hosted in the United States and intended for visitors located within the United States, and treats use from the European Union as consent to transfer personal data to the US for storage and processing. No access, rectification or erasure rights are set out; users are offered sharing settings and a marketing unsubscribe link. The only regional notice addresses Californian residents under Civil Code 1789.3. Questions about processing activities go to hello@civitai.com.
Who owns the data?
You keep the copyright in what you post, but the licence you grant Civit AI, Inc. is worldwide, non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free and sub-licensable through multiple tiers: it covers hosting, storing, transferring, publicly displaying, reproducing, reformatting, distributing and creating authorised derivative works. Anything you mark as public additionally carries a perpetual, irrevocable licence to every other user, who may use, display, publish, reproduce, distribute and adapt it unless you attach a different licence on your page. Private content is protected only by commercially reasonable confidentiality measures, and Civitai retains its own access rights over it. Feedback you send is licensed perpetually and irrevocably for any purpose.
Reuse rights
Reuse is governed by the individual model, not by one site-wide rule. Models published for download carry a Bespoke License generated by their author through the service, and you are bound by it: Civitai reserves the right to suspend or terminate an account for an actual or potential breach, with or without notice, so the licence should be read before any commercial use. Public user content is different again: every registered user receives a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free licence to use, display, publish, reproduce, distribute and make derivative works of it through the service, unless the author states otherwise. You must own or be properly licensed for everything you post. Models derived from NVIDIA Cosmos add NVIDIA's own OMLA terms, including a prohibition on removing watermarks, content filters or safety mechanisms.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
The privacy policy states plainly that the services are hosted in the United States and are intended for visitors located there, and reserves the right to transfer data from the US to other countries for storage and processing. Beyond that jurisdiction, nothing is named: no data centre, no cloud region and no hosting provider is disclosed. DNS resolution returns 104.20.38.219 on Cloudflare's AS13335, but this is an anycast edge node and therefore says nothing about where data is actually stored. A third-party payment processor handles card details on Civitai's behalf without being named; the advertising vendor Snigel is identified in the privacy policy, and Amazon Rekognition is cited on the Safety Center as part of the automated content labelling pipeline. There is no published subprocessor list, no data processing agreement and no hosting region commitment.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Civitai.
- The licence you grant is irrevocable and public content is licensed perpetually to every user: a publication cannot be taken back
- Content is public by default, so sharing settings should be checked before posting anything sensitive
- No retention period is published and no deletion procedure is described, so it is unclear how long anything is kept
- Delaware law, mandatory individual arbitration and a class-action waiver apply, with only a 30-day window to opt out
- You carry the legal risk on your own training data and content, including third-party rights you may not control
- Third-party models vary widely in quality and licensing: the Bespoke License must be read before any commercial use
- The platform runs on a non-convertible internal currency, and refunds are credited in Buzz rather than money
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Very low for web use: no installation, an account created through Discord, Google, GitHub, Reddit or email, and generation runs in the browser. It rises with ambition. Using downloaded models locally assumes a working Stable Diffusion or Flux environment, which is an intermediate to advanced exercise in itself. Civitai Link adds a desktop install and is limited to paying members. Working through the APIs — keys, OAuth with authorisation code and PKCE, orchestration payloads — is developer territory, though documentation and ready-made recipes are provided.
Deployment
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Civitai
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
Does Civitai cost anything to use?
Is there a minimum age?
Who owns what I publish on Civitai?
Can I generate images without installing anything?
Can I train my own model?
Is there an API?
Can I earn money from my models?
Is Civitai GDPR compliant?
Can I generate images of a real person?
Is there an official mobile app?
Should you pick Civitai?
Civitai is the reference point for open visual generative AI. Its catalogue of Stable Diffusion and Flux checkpoints and LoRAs is one of the largest anywhere, it is browsable without an account, and downloads cost nothing — which alone explains why so much of the community passes through it. Around that library the platform has assembled everything needed to stay: a browser-based generator that removes the GPU requirement, an on-site LoRA trainer, a desktop sync app, a serious developer platform with orchestration, OAuth and MCP, and a creator economy whose per-tier caps are published in figures rather than promised in prose.
The reservations are legal rather than technical. The licence you grant is irrevocable, and anything marked public is licensed perpetually to every other user, so publishing is not a decision you can take back. The site never mentions the GDPR: there is no DPA, no subprocessor list, no Article 27 representative and no published retention period, and the privacy policy has not moved since February 2024. Hosting is in the United States and the service is explicitly described as intended for US visitors, with Delaware law and mandatory arbitration on top. For a European organisation with compliance obligations, that is a real obstacle rather than a detail.
Judged on what it is — a community and a marketplace for open models, restricted to adults, with strict rules on minors and real people's likenesses — Civitai delivers well beyond what a free service usually does. Individual creators, studios working on concept and style, and developers who need generation as a service will find it hard to replace. Anyone who needs contractual guarantees on personal data should look elsewhere, or confine their use to content they are content to publish.
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