Welcome to the 14th in a series of posts where I will test AI image generators and see how they handle making maze art. I have asked the same 10 prompts from 12 different websites (a 13th Google Gemini was added in 2024). Today we compare the best from each prompt and see who does AI text to maze image the best. If you need to catch-up here is the series so far:
An exploration into Al Image Maze Generation
Making mazes with AI: DallE2 (Updated to compare 2023 to 2026)
Making mazes with AI: Stable Diffusion (Updated to compare 2023 and 2024 to 2026)
Making mazes with AI: Craiyon (Updated to compare 2023 to 2026)
Making mazes with AI: Dream by Wombo (Updated to compare 2023 to 2026)
Making mazes with AI: Nightcafe (Updated to compare 2023 to 2026)
Making mazes with AI: StarryAI (Updated to compare 2023 to 2026)
Making mazes with AI: DeepAI (Updated to compare 2023 to 2026)
Making mazes with AI: Canva (Updated to compare 2023 and 2024 to 2026)
Making mazes with AI: AI Image Generator (Updated to compare 2023 to 2026)
Making mazes with AI: Photosonic
Making mazes with AI: Bing AI Image Generator (Updated to compare 2023 and 2024 to 2026)
Making mazes with AI: Google Gemini (NOT in the original line-up - compares 2024 to 2026)
Making Maze Art with AI
Welcome to the finals of my maze making AI challenge. For the finals I will pick the 4 best images from the 12 sites. It is subjective, but there are a few that we could all agree do not make the cut. I will pick 4 finalists, then rank them. At the end I will rank all the sites based on how they did. You can do your own ranking if you would like. All mazes here are from 2023. If you prefer you can jump ahead to the summary of 2023 and then the 2023 winner vs. the best 2026 that is an option.
Prompt 1 - Make a medium difficulty maze of the Eiffel Tower in black and white with arrows at the start and finish.
The finalists are Stable Diffusion; StarryAI; Photosonic, and Bing AI. I should say that all of the generations were good for this prompt. My rank 1 - StarryAI wins for having the needle included and a maze and the cool viewpoint. 2 - Bing AI a strong second with the interesting maze, 3 - Stable Diffusion, 4 - Photosonic.
Prompt 2 - Draw a medium difficulty large maze of the Empire State Building with the start and goal embedded in the structure
There was a real struggle showing the needle of the building in these generations. Also, including a maze seemed to be difficult for the AI. Our finalists are StarryAI, Nightcafe, Stable Diffusion, and BingAI. My order 1 - Stable Diffusion (because it has the needle and the maze), 2 Bing AI - very cool concept ! 3 - StarryAI because at least it looks mazelike in black and white, and 4 - Nightcafe.
Prompt 3 - Draw a difficult maze of the White House pixel art style
Most AI could do pixel style and my finalists did it best. If I had said make a grid instead of a maze these would be much better. My finalists are Photosonic, Stable Diffusion, Dream by Wombo and Canva. I order them 1 - Stable Diffusion, 2 - Photosonic, and 3 - Dream by Wombo who almost got the building right and correctly included the flag…but that yard ! 4 - Canva who did a 3/4 of a great white house but forgot the maze.
Prompt 4 - Draw a difficult maze that looks like a drawing of a famous building in sketch style
4 different looking finalists. Canva, Nightcafe, Stable Diffusion and StarryAI made the grade. I want to give a special shoutout to StarryAI who had 4 different outputs that were all very interesting. As far as the other AI generators they typically made a simple maze, some with doors to signify a building. Not very good. My order is 1 - Nightcafe for the great fantasy looking castle in color, 2 - Stable Diffusion, because it has a maze in front of a column building and 3 - Canva, cool building in black and white that looks kind of famous. 4- StarryAI - love it, but doesn’t look like any famous building I have ever seen.
Prompt 5 - Draw a maze in the style of doyoumaze.com of a skyscraper in NYC
None of these used my style (that is good news for me !). Finalists are Dream by Wombo, StarryAI DeepAI, Stable Diffusion. I think the first 2 are very close…I think I will make the order as it is shown.
Prompt 6 - Draw a maze in the style of Sean C Jackson of a scene from a large outdoor market
I want to say that the output of this prompt was varied and interesting. I went with a more famous maze artist to test if the AI would get it (they generally did not). Finalists are Canva, Dream by Wombo, Nightcafe and Bing AI. Because it was closest to what I asked for 1 - Bing AI 2 - Canva, then 3 - Nightcafe because it includes mazes and is situated at the correct SCJ angle. 4 - Dream by Wombo - nice market…no maze.
Prompt 7 - Make a maze of a slice of an orange in color
This prompt was poorly written by me I guess. Lots of garbage output IMO. Our finalists are ToolBaz, Dall-E, Nightcafe and Bing AI. These made the cut because they include mazes and oranges. I do not feel strongly about the order after Bing AI…how about ToolBaz, Dall-E, Nightcafe ?
Prompt 8 - Make a maze integrated on top of a photograph of a king sitting on his throne looking cantankerous beside his beautiful queen
Using the term photo made this interesting. I also got a lot of horror blurred faces generated. Overall I was not impressed with these results. StarryAI, Dream by Wombo,Dall-E and Bing AI are our finalists. 1 - StarryAI because he looks like a deformed James Bond character, 2 - Dream by Wombo because the king looks like the most interesting man in the world, 3 - Bing AI for that king and 4 - Dall-E for including the queen as instructed.
Prompt 9 - Make a solvable maze that is very large and very difficult to solve because it is so complex
This was interesting from an output perspective. If an AI could shine with making makes this is where it would have come out. I wanted to see a large maze generated and a few actually delivered. We have Canva, Nightcafe and StarryAI, Dream by Wombo. For me 1 - Nightcafe - this fantasy labyrinth around a castle would have been a great output for #4 above (which Nightcafe won anyway !), 2 - StarryAI - if you could read the labels this would be better, but the maze is doable, and 3 - Canva because it looks like a complicated maze, but if you really attempt it…uh not so much. 4 - Dream by Wombo - just a solid 3D maze.
Prompt 10 - Make a 3d render of a red and blue glossy cube maze
This was a prompt that many AI generators exceled at creating interesting images for. For most I generated 4 images and had trouble picking the best among them..so I bent the rules here and picked a top 5. StarryAI, Nightcafe, ToolBaz, Canva, and Dall-E from top to bottom left to right. Ranking is tough, but I’ll go 1 - Dall-E for so many nice options, 2 - ToolBaz - it’s a small maze but make it bigger and I want to solve it, 3 - Canva - a crisper version of 4 - StarryAI, and 5 - Nightcafe.
AI Generator Results for 2023:
That does it. Let’s tabulate our results and see how everyone did. I will go with a 4,3,2,1 scoring system, with half points for 5th place on the last prompt…time to make a spreadsheet. And here it is:
Congratulations to StarryAI, Bing AI, Nightcafe and Stable Diffusion with the highest scores. This fits with what I found. And it seems like we have 3 sections in the results: The 4 best AI generators, the 4 middle class, and the 4 poor performers. I would say these findings are only for making maze art. Each generator can do wonderful things with the right prompt.
To remind you about the top 4:
StarryAI : You must sign in to use the site and you receive 5 credits per day for free. Each generation will generate 4 images and cost a credit (If you want 8 variations that will cost 3 credits). There are 6 styles to choose from, no style, Fantasy, Portrait, 3D Art, Wooltize and Anime. You may also upload a photo to give the AI “something to start with”.
Bing AI Image Generator: Sign in using your Microsoft account. Using the site is free to create images. Powered by DallE, but when I used it seemed to do a better job than DallE did with the prompts (I do not know why).
Nightcafe : You get 5 free daily credits to create with. Each prompt, or generation will generate only 1 image. It features 4 different style algorithms to use.
Stable Diffusion : You can try the site without signing in. Each prompt, or generation will generate 4 image options. There appears to be no limit to use for free.
I would also mention that 5th place Dream by Wombo only generates 1 image at a time vs. most other sites generating 4. I thought it was consistently strong despite being at a disadvantage. How did you score the sites?
2026 Update:
Based on what I know, the 2026 versions are much stronger overall than the 2023 and 2024 versions. In this section, I compare the winning 2023 from above to the best 2026 to show what I mean. The images are small, but can be clicked on to enlarge for a better view.
Prompt 1 - Make a medium difficulty maze of the Eiffel Tower in black and white with arrows at the start and finish
I am a huge fan of the Bing version from 2026. Nightcafe, Gemini, starryai 2023 is my order.
Prompt 2 - Draw a medium difficulty large maze of the Empire State Building with the start and goal embedded in the structure
Wow. I like all 3 from 2026. Hard to choose between the 3 when they are all so different. I’ll go Nightcafe, Canva, Stable diffusion, then 2023.
Prompt 3 - Draw a difficult maze of the White House pixel art style
I should mention that I think every single 2026 generation is better than the winner from 2023. Craiyon, Canva, Stable Diffusion, 2023 is my order.
Prompt 4 - Draw a difficult maze that looks like a drawing of a famous building in sketch style
2023 was a vibe pick I think. My order is Canva, Bing AI, Gemini and then 2023.
Prompt 5 - Draw a maze in the style of doyoumaze.com of a skyscraper in NYC
Nightcafe, Deepai, Canva, 2023. I could easily move the 2023 version higher. This is the first time I have considered it higher.
Prompt 6 - Draw a maze in the style of Sean C Jackson of a scene from a large outdoor market
I like them in the order shown.
Prompt 7 - Make a maze of a slice of an orange in color
I like the reverse order as shown, or if you read in an Asian language right to left.
Prompt 8 - Make a maze integrated on top of a photograph of a king sitting on his throne looking cantankerous beside his beautiful queen
Once again, I believe every image generated in 2026 is superior to every from 2023. My order is Craiyon, Canva, Bing and then 2023.
Prompt 9 - Make a solvable maze that is very large and very difficult to solve because it is so complex
Ai Image genrator for the win, the Nightcafe 2026, Nightcafe 2023, and Dream by Wombo.
Prompt 10 - Make a 3d render of a red and blue glossy cube maze
I wish I had never asked this prompt. I am never impressed with the output. The order is as shown above.
Summary and Conclusion: AI Generator Results for 2026 (including out 2023 winners):
That does it. Let’s tabulate our results and see how everyone did. I will go with a 4,3,2,1 scoring system again and I lumped all of the 2023 winners as one line. We have a new winner and a shake-up in the order. Our previous winner, starryai, disappointed this time. Only Bing remained in the top 3. Congratulations to Canva and Nightcafe for the improvement !
The final blog post in the series is next:
