> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://usefulai.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Best Music Generation Models in 2026

export const models = [{
  rank: 1,
  name: "Suno V5.5",
  dev: "Suno",
  icon: "/images/icons/suno.ai.png",
  url: "https://suno.com/blog/v5-5",
  bestFor: "Complete radio-ready songs",
  score: "100",
  price: "$0.007",
  license: "Proprietary",
  custom: "Paid-plan commercial use",
  customLabel: "Commercial rights"
}, {
  rank: 2,
  name: "Mureka V8",
  dev: "Mureka",
  icon: "/images/icons/mureka.ai.png",
  url: "https://www.mureka.ai/home",
  bestFor: "Quality songs you can automate",
  score: "88",
  price: "$0.10",
  license: "Proprietary",
  custom: "Paid-plan commercial use",
  customLabel: "Commercial rights"
}, {
  rank: 3,
  name: "Lyria 3 Pro",
  dev: "Google",
  icon: "/images/icons/google.com.png",
  url: "https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/music-generation",
  bestFor: "Music built into apps",
  score: "68",
  price: "$0.027",
  license: "Proprietary",
  custom: "API/enterprise terms",
  customLabel: "Commercial rights"
}, {
  rank: 4,
  name: "MiniMax Music 2.6",
  dev: "MiniMax",
  icon: "/images/icons/minimax.io.png",
  url: "https://platform.minimax.io/docs/api-reference/music-generation",
  bestFor: "Affordable API song generation",
  score: "62",
  price: "$0.05",
  license: "Proprietary",
  custom: "API/enterprise terms",
  customLabel: "Commercial rights"
}, {
  rank: 5,
  name: "Eleven Music v2",
  dev: "ElevenLabs",
  icon: "/images/icons/elevenlabs.io.png",
  url: "https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-creative/products/music",
  bestFor: "Paid commercial-use route",
  score: "56",
  price: "$0.15",
  license: "Proprietary",
  custom: "Paid-plan commercial use",
  customLabel: "Commercial rights"
}, {
  rank: 6,
  name: "Udio v1.5 Allegro",
  dev: "Udio",
  icon: "/images/icons/udio.com.png",
  url: "https://help.udio.com/en/articles/10748731-changelog-what-s-new-with-udio",
  bestFor: "Fast in-app drafts",
  score: "15",
  price: "$0.004",
  license: "Proprietary",
  custom: "Unclear / verify",
  customLabel: "Commercial rights"
}, {
  rank: 7,
  name: "ACE-Step 1.5 XL",
  dev: "ACE-Step project",
  icon: "/images/icons/github.com.png",
  url: "https://github.com/ace-step/ACE-Step-1.5",
  bestFor: "Editable open-weight songs",
  score: "Not scored",
  price: "Not available",
  license: "Open weight",
  custom: "Broad commercial use",
  customLabel: "Commercial rights"
}, {
  rank: 8,
  name: "Stable Audio 3.0 Small",
  dev: "Stability AI",
  icon: "/images/icons/stability.ai.png",
  url: "https://huggingface.co/stabilityai/stable-audio-3-small-music",
  bestFor: "Local music generation",
  score: "Not scored",
  price: "Not available",
  license: "Open weight",
  custom: "Broad commercial use",
  customLabel: "Commercial rights"
}, {
  rank: 9,
  name: "LeVo 2",
  dev: "Tencent / SongGeneration project",
  icon: "/images/icons/tencent.com.png",
  url: "https://huggingface.co/tencent/SongGeneration",
  bestFor: "Best open-weight vocals",
  score: "Not scored",
  price: "Not available",
  license: "Open weight",
  custom: "Noncommercial only",
  customLabel: "Commercial rights"
}];

export const Fav = ({icon, size = "h-4 w-4"}) => <img src={icon} alt="" noZoom className={"relative -top-px mr-1 inline rounded-sm object-contain " + size} />;

export const LicenseBadge = ({license}) => license === "Open weight" ? <span className="inline-flex items-center rounded bg-emerald-50 px-1.5 py-[2px] text-xs font-medium leading-4 text-emerald-700 dark:bg-emerald-500/10 dark:text-emerald-400">Open weight</span> : <span className="inline-flex items-center rounded bg-zinc-100 px-1.5 py-[2px] text-xs font-medium leading-4 text-zinc-600 dark:bg-white/10 dark:text-zinc-300">Proprietary</span>;

export const BestForChip = ({children}) => <span className="inline-flex min-w-0 max-w-full items-center rounded bg-sky-50 px-1.5 py-[2px] dark:bg-sky-500/10">
    <span className="truncate text-xs font-medium leading-4 text-sky-700 dark:text-sky-400">{children}</span>
  </span>;

export const HeaderTip = ({label, tip}) => <span className="inline-flex items-center gap-1.5">
    <span>{label}</span>
    <Tooltip tip={tip}>
      <span className="relative top-0.5 inline-flex cursor-pointer text-zinc-500 transition-opacity hover:opacity-70 dark:text-zinc-400">
        <Icon icon="circle-info" size={12} color="currentColor" />
        <span className="sr-only">About {label.toLowerCase()}</span>
      </span>
    </Tooltip>
  </span>;

export const ModelCard = ({model, children}) => <section className="not-prose my-5 rounded-lg border border-zinc-200 bg-white p-5 shadow-sm dark:border-white/10 dark:bg-white/[0.03]">
    <div className="mb-3"><BestForChip>{model.bestFor}</BestForChip></div>
    <div className="flex items-center gap-3">
      <img src={model.icon} alt={model.dev + " logo"} noZoom className="h-10 w-10 shrink-0 rounded-lg object-contain" />
      <div className="min-w-0 flex-1">
        <h2 className="m-0 max-w-full text-xl font-semibold leading-7 tracking-normal">
          <a href={model.url} target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="group inline-flex min-w-0 max-w-full items-center gap-1.5 no-underline text-zinc-950 dark:text-white">
            <span className="min-w-0 break-words"><span className="underline-offset-4 group-hover:underline group-focus-visible:underline">{model.name}</span> <span className="font-normal text-zinc-500 dark:text-zinc-400">({model.dev})</span></span>
            <span aria-hidden="true" className="flex shrink-0 text-zinc-400 transition-colors group-hover:text-zinc-900 group-focus-visible:text-zinc-900 dark:text-zinc-500 dark:group-hover:text-white dark:group-focus-visible:text-white"><Icon icon="arrow-up-right" size={12} color="currentColor" /></span>
          </a>
        </h2>
        <div className="mt-1 flex flex-wrap items-center gap-x-2 gap-y-1 text-[13px] leading-5 uai-ink-muted">
          <LicenseBadge license={model.license} />
          <span aria-hidden="true">∙</span>
          <span>Score <span className="tabular-nums text-zinc-950 dark:text-white">{model.score}</span></span>
          <span aria-hidden="true">∙</span>
          <span>Price <span className="tabular-nums text-zinc-950 dark:text-white">{model.price}</span></span>
          {model.custom && <><span aria-hidden="true">∙</span><span>{model.customLabel} <span className="tabular-nums text-zinc-950 dark:text-white">{model.custom}</span></span></>}
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
    {children}
  </section>;

export const Take = ({children}) => <div className="not-prose mt-4 text-sm leading-[22px] text-zinc-700 dark:text-zinc-300">{children}</div>;

export const ST = ({label, children}) => <div className="not-prose mt-4">
    <div className="text-sm font-semibold text-zinc-950 dark:text-white">{label}</div>
    <div className="mt-1 flex flex-col gap-2.5 text-sm leading-[22px] text-zinc-700 dark:text-zinc-300">{children}</div>
  </div>;

export const AccessBullets = ({rows}) => <div className="not-prose mt-4 text-sm leading-[22px] text-zinc-700 dark:text-zinc-300">
    <div className="font-semibold text-zinc-950 dark:text-white">How to access</div>
    <div className="mt-1.5 flex flex-col gap-1.5">
      {rows.map(([key, body]) => <span key={key} className="flex items-baseline gap-2.5"><span aria-hidden="true" className="relative -top-0.5 inline-block h-1.5 w-1.5 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-zinc-700 dark:bg-zinc-300" /><span><span className="font-semibold text-zinc-950 dark:text-white">{key}</span> — {body}</span></span>)}
    </div>
  </div>;

export const Alt = ({icon, name, dev, url, children}) => <span className="flex items-baseline gap-2.5">
    <span aria-hidden="true" className="relative -top-0.5 inline-block h-1.5 w-1.5 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-zinc-300 dark:bg-zinc-600" />
    <span><Fav icon={icon} /><a href={url} target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="font-medium text-zinc-950 underline underline-offset-2 dark:text-white">{name}</a> <span className="uai-ink-muted">({dev})</span> — {children}</span>
  </span>;

<div className="not-prose -mt-2 mb-8 flex flex-wrap items-center gap-x-2 text-sm text-zinc-800 dark:text-zinc-200 lg:-mt-5" style={{ paddingLeft: "2px" }}>
  <span className="inline-flex items-center gap-1.5"><Icon icon="clock-rotate-left" size={10} color="currentColor" /> Updated <time dateTime="2026-07-12">July 12, 2026</time></span>
</div>

AI music generation models turn a text prompt into a full song, with vocals, instruments, and structure. The real choice isn't which app to open; it's matching quality, price, how you run it, and whether you can sell it. We compared the nine that matter.

## Best Music Generation Models

<div className="uai-overview-breakout not-prose my-5">
  <input type="checkbox" id="models-more" className="fy-more-toggle sr-only" aria-label={"Show all 9 music generation models"} />

  <div className="fy-more-table overflow-x-auto rounded-lg border border-zinc-200 bg-white dark:border-white/10 dark:bg-white/[0.03]">
    <div className="table text-sm" style={{ width: "100%" }}>
      <div className="table-header-group bg-zinc-50/60 dark:bg-white/[0.02]">
        <div className="table-row">
          <span className="table-cell whitespace-nowrap px-4 py-2.5 text-left text-[13px] font-medium leading-5 text-zinc-500 dark:text-zinc-400">#</span>
          <span className="table-cell whitespace-nowrap px-4 py-2.5 text-left text-[13px] font-medium leading-5 text-zinc-500 dark:text-zinc-400">Model</span>
          <span className="table-cell whitespace-nowrap px-4 py-2.5 text-left text-[13px] font-medium leading-5 text-zinc-500 dark:text-zinc-400">Best for</span>

          <span className="table-cell whitespace-nowrap px-4 py-2.5 text-right text-[13px] font-medium leading-5 text-zinc-500 dark:text-zinc-400">
            <HeaderTip label="Score" tip={"UsefulAI's 0-100 music score combines normalized Artificial Analysis vocals and instrumental preference Elo. Higher is better."} />
          </span>

          <span className="table-cell whitespace-nowrap px-4 py-2.5 text-right text-[13px] font-medium leading-5 text-zinc-500 dark:text-zinc-400">
            <HeaderTip label="Price" tip={"Comparable USD per generated minute. Subscription credits, song duration, tiers, and commercial terms can change the effective price."} />
          </span>

          <span className="table-cell whitespace-nowrap px-4 py-2.5 text-left text-[13px] font-medium leading-5 text-zinc-500 dark:text-zinc-400">
            <HeaderTip label="License" tip="Proprietary means no public model weights. Open weight means weights are available, though exact licenses and commercial-use terms vary." />
          </span>

          <span className="table-cell whitespace-nowrap px-4 py-2.5 text-left text-[13px] font-medium leading-5 text-zinc-500 dark:text-zinc-400">
            <HeaderTip label={"Commercial rights"} tip={"The clearest current commercial-use status for generated output. Plan terms and attribution requirements can still vary."} />
          </span>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div className="table-row-group">
        {models.map((model, index) => (
                        <a key={model.name} href={model.url} target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className={"table-row no-underline transition-colors hover:bg-zinc-50/60 dark:hover:bg-white/[0.02]" + (models.length > 9 && index >= 7 ? " fy-more-row" : "")}>
                          <span className="table-cell w-8 whitespace-nowrap border-t border-zinc-100 px-4 py-3 align-middle text-[13px] tabular-nums dark:border-white/5"><span className="sr-only">Rank </span><span className="uai-ink-muted">{model.rank}</span></span>
                          <span className="table-cell whitespace-nowrap border-t border-zinc-100 px-4 py-3 align-middle dark:border-white/5"><span className="flex items-center gap-2.5"><Fav icon={model.icon} /><span className="text-sm font-semibold leading-5 text-zinc-950 dark:text-white">{model.name}</span></span></span>
                          <span className="table-cell whitespace-nowrap border-t border-zinc-100 px-4 py-3 align-middle text-[13px] leading-5 text-zinc-950 dark:border-white/5 dark:text-white"><span className="sr-only">Best for: </span>{model.bestFor}</span>
                          <span className="table-cell whitespace-nowrap border-t border-zinc-100 px-4 py-3 text-right align-middle text-[13px] leading-5 tabular-nums text-zinc-950 dark:border-white/5 dark:text-white"><span className="sr-only">Score: </span>{model.score}</span>
                          <span className="table-cell whitespace-nowrap border-t border-zinc-100 px-4 py-3 text-right align-middle text-[13px] leading-5 tabular-nums dark:border-white/5"><span className="sr-only">Price: </span><span className="uai-ink-muted">{model.price}</span></span>
                          <span className="table-cell whitespace-nowrap border-t border-zinc-100 px-4 py-3 align-middle dark:border-white/5"><span className="sr-only">License: </span><LicenseBadge license={model.license} /></span>
                          <span className="table-cell whitespace-nowrap border-t border-zinc-100 px-4 py-3 align-middle text-[13px] leading-5 text-zinc-950 dark:border-white/5 dark:text-white"><span className="sr-only">Commercial rights: </span>{model.custom}</span>
                        </a>
                      ))}
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  {models.length > 9 && <div className="fy-more-pill mt-3 flex justify-center">
      <label htmlFor="models-more" className="inline-flex cursor-pointer items-center gap-1.5 rounded-full border border-zinc-200 px-4 py-1.5 text-[13px] font-medium text-zinc-600 transition-colors hover:text-zinc-900 dark:border-white/15 dark:text-zinc-300 dark:hover:text-white">
        <span className="fy-more-open inline-flex items-center gap-1.5">Show {models.length - 7} more <Icon icon="chevron-down" size={13} /></span>
        <span className="fy-more-close items-center gap-1.5">Show less <Icon icon="chevron-up" size={13} /></span>
      </label>
    </div>}
</div>

The score is a 0-100 blend of the Artificial Analysis Music Vocals and Instrumental Elo leaderboards, which rank models by blind human preference votes. Per-minute prices are normalized from subscriptions, credits, and per-song billing, so treat them as directional. The three open-weight models aren't in the arena, so they remain unscored; compare them using access, hardware, rights, and vocals support.

***

<ModelCard model={models[0]}>
  <Take>Suno is the model to beat for finished, full-length songs, and V5.5 is the most polished vocal generator you can use today.</Take>

  <ST label="Strengths:">
    <div>Nothing else here matches its hit rate on complete songs: coherent structure, clean mixing, and expressive vocals from a single prompt, across most mainstream genres.</div>
    <div>If you want to type an idea and get back something that sounds finished, this is the most reliable pick.</div>
  </ST>

  <ST label="Tradeoffs:">
    <div>There's no public API, so it's app-only, fine for one-off songs, but if you need to generate at scale, Mureka or Lyria 3 are the API picks.</div>
    <div>It leans pop, with niche genres drifting mainstream, and a Warner licensing deal is actively reshaping the model.</div>
  </ST>

  <AccessBullets
    rows={[
["App", <span>Available in <a href="https://suno.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">Suno</a>.</span>],
]}
  />
</ModelCard>

<ModelCard model={models[1]}>
  <Take>Mureka gets closest to Suno's quality while adding what Suno lacks: a first-party API and a paid commercial-use path for scaled generation.</Take>

  <ST label="Strengths:">
    <div>The vocals and overall polish land within striking distance of Suno, and you get things Suno won't give you: an official API and commercial rights for paid output.</div>
    <div>It's the strongest choice when you need quality and programmatic access together.</div>
  </ST>

  <ST label="Tradeoffs:">
    <div>It's a notch below Suno on the hardest, most expressive songs, so for pure one-shot quality Suno still wins.</div>
    <div>Mureka now markets V9 as well; V8 is the benchmarked version, and API naming can move faster than consumer labels, so confirm the exact model selected.</div>
  </ST>

  <AccessBullets
    rows={[
["App", <span>Available in <a href="https://www.mureka.ai/home" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">Mureka</a>.</span>],
["API", <span>Accessible via the <a href="https://platform.mureka.ai/docs/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">Mureka API</a>.</span>],
]}
  />
</ModelCard>

<ModelCard model={models[2]}>
  <Take>Lyria 3 Pro is Google's developer-first music model: stronger on instrumentals than vocals, watermarked on every track, and built for embedding generation into apps.</Take>

  <ST label="Strengths:">
    <div>It's a reliable, well-documented API for adding music to a product, with clean instrumental output, vocals supported, and stereo WAV on the Pro tier.</div>
    <div>Timestamped structure control gives more predictable results than most one-prompt tools, which matters when generation has to run unattended.</div>
  </ST>

  <ST label="Tradeoffs:">
    <div>Lyria 3 Pro is still in preview, generation is single-turn with no iterative editing, and every track carries a SynthID watermark that flags it as AI-generated.</div>
    <div>If you need unmarked audio, that's a dealbreaker. On pure vocal songs, Suno and Mureka clearly outclass it.</div>
  </ST>

  <AccessBullets
    rows={[
["App", <span>Available in <a href="https://gemini.google.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">Gemini</a>, <a href="https://docs.google.com/videos/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">Google Vids</a>, and <a href="https://www.producer.ai/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">ProducerAI / Flow Music</a>.</span>],
["API", <span>Accessible via the <a href="https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/music-generation" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">Gemini API</a>.</span>],
]}
  />
</ModelCard>

<ModelCard model={models[3]}>
  <Take>MiniMax Music 2.6 is the sensible value pick for generating full songs through an API, with solid vocal output that punches above its weight.</Take>

  <ST label="Strengths:">
    <div>You get full, vocal-driven songs from a clean API, with multilingual output and auto-generated lyrics when you don't bring your own.</div>
    <div>Quality sits comfortably in the middle tier, making it a strong high-volume workhorse when you need lots of decent songs rather than a handful of perfect ones.</div>
  </ST>

  <ST label="Tradeoffs:">
    <div>It's not the best on vocals or instrumentals, so for a hero track you'll want Suno or Mureka.</div>
    <div>MiniMax's API terms say customers retain ownership rights in generated content, while the consumer app permits personal, noncommercial use, so keep the route distinction clear.</div>
  </ST>

  <AccessBullets
    rows={[
["App", <span>Available in <a href="https://www.minimax.io/audio/music" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">MiniMax Audio</a>.</span>],
["API", <span>Accessible via the <a href="https://platform.minimax.io/docs/api-reference/music-generation" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">MiniMax API</a>.</span>],
]}
  />
</ModelCard>

<ModelCard model={models[4]}>
  <Take>Eleven Music v2 is the rights-conscious pick: it is trained on licensed music and offers a clear paid-plan route for commercial output.</Take>

  <ST label="Strengths:">
    <div>Its edge is provenance. ElevenLabs trained it on licensed music through deals with rights holders and permits commercial use under eligible paid plans.</div>
    <div>Vocals are polished and multilingual, making it a strong option when rights clarity matters alongside song quality.</div>
  </ST>

  <ST label="Tradeoffs:">
    <div>It's priced at a real premium, and on song quality it trails Suno, Mureka, and Lyria 3 on instrumentals.</div>
    <div>Commercial permissions depend on the plan and use case, so check model-specific terms; licensed training data is not a blanket guarantee.</div>
  </ST>

  <AccessBullets
    rows={[
["App", <span>Available in <a href="https://elevenmusic.io" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">ElevenMusic</a> and <a href="https://elevenlabs.io/music" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">ElevenCreative</a>.</span>],
["API", <span>Accessible via <a href="https://elevenlabs.io/docs/changelog/2026/6/15" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">ElevenAPI using music_v2</a>.</span>],
]}
  />
</ModelCard>

<ModelCard model={models[5]}>
  <Take>Once a top-two name, Udio is now an app-only route with downloads disabled during its current transition, which sharply limits its usefulness for real work.</Take>

  <ST label="Strengths:">
    <div>Allegro is Udio's fast, low-cost model, and Udio's vocals earned it a real following. At its best it produces expressive, characterful singing.</div>
    <div>If you just want to sketch ideas and listen inside the app, it's quick and cheap.</div>
  </ST>

  <ST label="Tradeoffs:">
    <div>The dealbreaker is export access: you can't currently download audio, stems, or MP3s, so creations stay on-platform. That restriction does not resolve commercial rights or ownership, which remain unclear.</div>
    <div>For production work, use Suno or Mureka.</div>
  </ST>

  <AccessBullets
    rows={[
["App", <span>Available in <a href="https://www.udio.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">Udio web</a> and the <a href="https://apps.apple.com/app/id6511211165" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">Udio iOS app</a>.</span>],
]}
  />
</ModelCard>

<ModelCard model={models[6]}>
  <Take>ACE-Step 1.5 XL is the most practical open-weight song model: MIT-licensed with real editing tools, if you have the GPU to run it.</Take>

  <ST label="Strengths:">
    <div>This is the open-weight pick with the best tooling: an MIT license that explicitly clears output for commercial use, editing modes like repaint and cover, LoRA fine-tuning, and 50-plus languages with sung lyrics.</div>
    <div>You control the pipeline instead of paying a provider per song, but you bear the compute cost.</div>
  </ST>

  <ST label="Tradeoffs:">
    <div>You need a high-end GPU, roughly 12GB of VRAM minimum and 20GB-plus for full quality, so it's not run-anywhere. It still trails Suno on polish, and sustained vocals can sound metallic.</div>
    <div>Choose it for control and editability, not cloud-model convenience.</div>
  </ST>

  <AccessBullets
    rows={[
["App", <span>Available in the <a href="https://huggingface.co/spaces/ACE-Step/Ace-Step-v1.5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">official ACE-Step v1.5 Hugging Face Space</a>.</span>],
["API", <span>Accessible via the <a href="https://github.com/ace-step/ACE-Step-1.5/blob/main/docs/en/API.md" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">self-hosted ACE-Step REST API</a>.</span>],
["Run locally", <span>If you have a high-end machine, you can run it with the <a href="https://github.com/ace-step/ACE-Step-1.5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">official ACE-Step runtime</a> after downloading weights from <a href="https://huggingface.co/ACE-Step/acestep-v15-xl-base" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">Hugging Face</a>.</span>],
]}
  />
</ModelCard>

<ModelCard model={models[7]}>
  <Take>Stable Audio 3.0 Small is the open pick for generating complete music locally on a typical machine, with lyric-conditioned singing still unverified.</Take>

  <ST label="Strengths:">
    <div>At 0.6B parameters, it is designed for on-device full music composition and supports outputs up to two minutes.</div>
    <div>ComfyUI support and public weights make it the most practical local option here for readers without a high-end GPU.</div>
  </ST>

  <ST label="Tradeoffs:">
    <div>Full sung lyrics are not clearly documented, so choose ACE-Step or a proprietary model when vocals are essential.</div>
    <div>Commercial use is governed by Stability's Community License, including its revenue threshold, and Medium and Large are separate variants with different access routes.</div>
  </ST>

  <AccessBullets
    rows={[
["Run locally", <span>You can run it locally with <a href="https://blog.comfy.org/p/stable-audio-3-day-0-support" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">ComfyUI</a> after downloading weights from <a href="https://huggingface.co/stabilityai/stable-audio-3-small-music" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">Hugging Face</a>.</span>],
]}
  />
</ModelCard>

<ModelCard model={models[8]}>
  <Take>LeVo 2 is our open-weight vocals pick, but a restrictive Tencent license and steep hardware needs keep it in research territory.</Take>

  <ST label="Strengths:">
    <div>If you want convincing open-weight vocals, this is the strongest candidate here. Tencent's dual-track approach separates vocals from accompaniment and supports full songs, instrumentals, and a cappella.</div>
    <div>The result is a useful research model when vocal quality matters more than commercial rights.</div>
  </ST>

  <ST label="Tradeoffs:">
    <div>The license is the catch: it restricts the code and weights to noncommercial use. The exact v2-large route also needs roughly 22-28GB of VRAM depending on setup.</div>
    <div>For anything you'll sell, ACE-Step's commercial-use grant is the safer open pick.</div>
  </ST>

  <AccessBullets
    rows={[
["Run locally", <span>If you have a high-end machine, follow the setup guidance and download the weights from the official <a href="https://huggingface.co/tencent/SongGeneration" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" className="underline underline-offset-2">SongGeneration model card</a>.</span>],
]}
  />
</ModelCard>

***

## How to Choose

When choosing between these models, consider:

* **Access:** Decide first whether you'll use the model in an app, call it through an API, or run it locally, because that single choice drives your cost, privacy, latency, and setup work. Suno and Udio are app-only; Mureka, Lyria, MiniMax, and Eleven add APIs; ACE-Step, Stable Audio, and LeVo 2 are the local routes.
* **Quality:** We use a 0-100 blend of the Artificial Analysis Music Vocals and Instrumental Elo leaderboards, which rank models by blind human preference votes. It's a useful signal for which one sounds better. The open-weight models aren't in the arena, so they remain unscored and should be compared on practical factors instead.
* **Price:** We normalize everything to cost per generated minute of audio, since vendors bill in very different units: subscriptions, credits, per-song, and per-track. Treat these as directional; your real cost depends on how much you regenerate to get a keeper.
* **Commercial rights and vocals:** If you plan to publish or sell, rights matter as much as quality. They range from paid-plan or API terms to broad open-model grants and LeVo 2's noncommercial restriction. Udio's export lock is an access limitation, while its commercial rights remain unclear. Stable Audio can generate music locally, but full sung lyrics are not clearly documented.

***

## Other Models We Considered

<div className="not-prose my-4 flex flex-col gap-1.5 text-sm text-zinc-700 dark:text-zinc-300">
  <Alt icon={"/images/icons/suno.ai.png"} name={"Suno V5"} dev={"Suno"} url={"https://help.suno.com/en/articles/8105153"}>The prior Suno flagship, still good, but V5.5 supersedes it.</Alt>
  <Alt icon={"/images/icons/suno.ai.png"} name={"Suno V4.5"} dev={"Suno"} url={"https://suno.com/blog/introducing-v4-5"}>An older Suno generation; skip it now that V5.5 exists.</Alt>
  <Alt icon={"/images/icons/google.com.png"} name={"Lyria 2"} dev={"Google"} url={"https://docs.cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise-agent-platform/models/lyria/lyria-002"}>Google's earlier instrumental-only API model, with no sung vocals.</Alt>
  <Alt icon={"/images/icons/elevenlabs.io.png"} name={"Eleven Music v1"} dev={"ElevenLabs"} url={"https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-creative/products/music"}>The first ElevenLabs music model, now behind Music v2.</Alt>
  <Alt icon={"/images/icons/huggingface.co.png"} name={"FUZZ-2.0"} dev={"Producer.ai"} url={"https://www.linkedin.com/posts/producerdotai_introducing-producerai-the-first-agentic-activity-7356780313059938305-FdXh"}>A benchmarked historical challenger with no current verified model route.</Alt>
  <Alt icon={"/images/icons/huggingface.co.png"} name={"Sonauto V2.1"} dev={"Sonauto"} url={"https://treblo.com/developers/docs?from=sonauto"}>A cheap benchmarked option, but the product and model have moved on.</Alt>
  <Alt icon={"/images/icons/meta.ai.png"} name={"MusicGen"} dev={"Meta"} url={"https://huggingface.co/facebook/musicgen-large"}>The recognizable open instrumental baseline, now old, instrumental-only, and outclassed.</Alt>
  <Alt icon={"/images/icons/huggingface.co.png"} name={"HeartMuLa"} dev={"HeartMuLa project"} url={"https://github.com/HeartMuLa/heartlib"}>An Apache-2.0 multilingual local model, promising but still rough for finished songs.</Alt>
  <Alt icon={"/images/icons/huggingface.co.png"} name={"DiffRhythm 2"} dev={"Xiaomi / ASLP"} url={"https://huggingface.co/ASLP-lab/DiffRhythm2"}>An Apache-2.0 full-song open model with a demo, worth watching as it matures.</Alt>
  <Alt icon={"/images/icons/huggingface.co.png"} name={"YuE"} dev={"YuE project"} url={"https://github.com/multimodal-art-projection/YuE"}>A permissively licensed full-song local model, but slow and demanding to run.</Alt>
</div>

***

## Frequently Asked Questions

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title={"What is the best AI music generation model right now?"}>
    Suno V5.5. It tops both the vocals and instrumental leaderboards and is the most reliable at turning a single prompt into a finished, full-length song. Mureka V8 is the closest alternative and adds an API that Suno doesn't have.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title={"What is the best music generation model for most people?"}>
    For most people making complete songs, Suno V5.5. It's app-based, needs no setup, and produces the most polished results. If you need to generate songs programmatically, Mureka V8 or MiniMax Music 2.6 are better fits, while Eleven Music v2 offers a clear paid-plan commercial-use route.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title={"What is the best open-weight model I can run locally?"}>
    It depends on your hardware and goal. ACE-Step 1.5 XL is the best all-round open song model with the friendliest license, but it needs a high-end GPU. Stable Audio 3.0 Small generates music on a typical machine, but full sung lyrics are not clearly documented. LeVo 2 has strong open vocals but a noncommercial license.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title={"Can I use AI-generated music commercially?"}>
    Sometimes, and it depends entirely on the model and route. Suno, Mureka, and Eleven provide commercial-use paths on eligible paid plans, while MiniMax's API and consumer app use different terms. ACE-Step explicitly permits commercial output. Udio's rights remain unclear and exports are disabled; LeVo 2 is noncommercial only. Always read the applicable terms before you publish or sell.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title={"Is the Suno vs Udio debate still worth having in 2026?"}>
    The current comparison heavily favors Suno. Udio's downloads are disabled during its transition, while Suno remains the stronger benchmarked model with a usable export workflow. Unless Udio restores a download-enabled product, Suno is the clear pick, with Mureka as the main alternative.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title={"Do these music benchmarks reflect real-world quality?"}>
    Reasonably well. The score comes from blind human preference votes on the Artificial Analysis arena, so it tracks what people actually think sounds better rather than a synthetic metric. But it can't capture genre fit, editing workflow, or licensing, so use it as a starting point and then test on your own prompts.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title={"What is the best model for songs with vocals?"}>
    Suno V5.5 for finished vocal tracks, with Mureka V8 close behind and adding an API. Among open-weight models, LeVo 2 has the strongest vocal case, though its license is noncommercial. Do not choose Stable Audio specifically for vocals until Stability documents reliable lyric-conditioned singing.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>