Nano Banana vs Nano Banana Pro vs Nano Banana 2: All Four Compared

Seven jobs, one pick each, cheapest model that does the job first.

A note on names, since the search terms mix them up. Nano Banana is Google's name for its Gemini image models. The original, from August 2025, is Gemini 2.5 Flash Image; Nano Banana Pro, from late 2025, is Gemini 3 Pro Image, which is why you also see it called Gemini 3 Nano Banana Pro; Nano Banana 2, from February 2026, is Gemini 3.1 Flash Image; and the model our picker calls Nano Banana Lite is the one Google calls Nano Banana 2 Lite, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite Image, from June 2026. Checked October 2026.

Every cell below comes from our model catalog, and the sizes are what the Image studio lets you pick, not a maximum from a launch post. Every card's image is that variant's own render, one click from the studio.

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  GoogleNano Banana Pro1K, 2K, 4K
• 
  GoogleNano Banana 20.5K, 1K, 2K, 4K
• 
  GoogleNano Banana1K
• 
  GoogleNano Banana Lite1K

All four take the same eight shapes, from 21:9 to 9:16 with the social sizes 4:5 and 5:4 among them, and all four render up to four images a run. Nano Banana 2, Nano Banana Pro and Nano Banana Lite also take Auto, which lets the model pick the shape from the prompt; the original Nano Banana wants a shape named.

Size is the first real difference. Nano Banana and Nano Banana Lite render 1K only. Nano Banana Pro renders 1K, 2K or 4K. Nano Banana 2 renders all of those and adds 0.5K, a draft size for checking a composition or the wording of a prompt before spending on the real thing.

The row to remember is 2K on Nano Banana Pro: it costs what 1K costs, so there is no reason to render Pro small. The other is 4K on Nano Banana 2, the cheapest 4K in the family by a wide margin, and the right default for a large print of a simple subject. Pro's 4K earns its price when the image is dense: a crowd, a cityscape, a packaging flat with small type.

Text is where the Pro model separates from the rest. Google's page for Nano Banana Pro leads with clear text for posters and intricate diagrams (checked October 2026), and it is built to hold spelling across a sentence, keeps the words on the surface you named, and lays out a slide, a label panel or a simple chart in the order you wrote it. Nano Banana 2 handles short text well, a sign with three or four words, a product name, a caption, and becomes unreliable on a paragraph. Keep the original and Lite to a word or two.

For infographics the gap is wider still. Ask for a title, four icons with labels and a footer, and Nano Banana Pro is the one built to return a usable draft; the cheaper models are more likely to return something that only looks like an infographic from across the room. If the job is a diagram, do not draft it on the cheaper models and hope: start on Pro at 2K, render four, and pick the one with every label right.

Prompting for text on any of the four

• Exact words in quotation marks, and where they go: a chalkboard reading “Today: lemon tart”.
• A typeface in plain words: a bold condensed sans, a hand-painted serif.
• Few lines. Three hold; eight break, on every variant.
• A plain surface behind the letters; texture behind type is where glyphs fail.

Our Nano Banana page collects posters, recipe cards and packaging prompts that lean on text, most of them rendered on the family.

Editing is the family trade. All four take a photo in the Image studio: attach it, describe the change, and the model returns the same photo with that change, the rest left as it was. Swap a jacket, remove a sign from the background, move a product onto a different table, turn afternoon into dusk, add a hat. The original Nano Banana earned its reputation on exactly this, and it still does it well at 1K.

The variants differ in how careful they are. Nano Banana Pro is the most careful: faces stay the same face, labels stay legible, the crop does not shift. Nano Banana 2 is close and far cheaper, which makes it the right first try; move to Pro when an edit drifts or when the output has to be 2K or 4K and the detail matters. Lite is the quick sketch: good for seeing whether an idea works before you spend on it.

For the heavier single-image jobs, retouching a region, extending the canvas, swapping a background, upscaling, the Editor has a mode for each, and its Edit and Translate modes run Nano Banana. The image to image page walks through the photo-first method from the start.

Nano Banana Lite is built for speed: the studio calls it the quick Nano Banana, and Google bills it as its fastest image model. The original Nano Banana is quick too. Nano Banana 2 carries a Fast badge in the studio and is quick at 1K, slower at 4K. Nano Banana Pro is the one you wait for, and 4K on Pro is the longest wait in the family. None of them is slow in the way video is; the difference is whether you sit through a render or not.

Cost follows the same order. Nano Banana and Lite cost the least per image, Nano Banana 2 a little more at its smallest size and more again at 4K, and Nano Banana Pro the most, with 4K doubling it. In the Image studio, each of the four cards carries its own starting price. The economical pattern is the same on every job: find the prompt on Lite or Nano Banana 2 at a small size, then render the keeper once, large, on the model whose detail you need.

When the cheaper model is the final render

• Social posts at 1K with little or no text: Nano Banana 2, or Nano Banana for a quick edit.
• A batch of variations to choose from: Nano Banana 2 at 0.5K, four a run, then one at 2K.
• A simple subject at 4K, a landscape, a product on a plain background: Nano Banana 2.
• Any edit where the detail you care about survived on the first pass: whichever model made it.

Hold everything still except the model: the same words, the same shape, 1K, since that is the size all four render. Compare runs each lane at its model's smallest size and sends no shape, which puts Nano Banana 2 at 0.5K and the original Nano Banana in a square; for a strict match, rerun those two at 1K in the Image studio, the original on the shape you named, and run the photo edit there too, since Compare takes no photo. Every prompt tests a single trait; the right-hand column names what to check. The previews behind the Nano Banana 2 and Nano Banana Lite cards came from prompts in this spirit: a flea market vendor holding up a chipped enamel teapot, a mechanic truing a wheel while a customer points at the spokes.

What we would expect, not a measured result: Pro ahead on the long text and the placement test, Nano Banana 2 level with it on candid people and material, and Lite back first every time. Wherever Nano Banana 2 ties Pro for your subject, that is the result that saves the most over a month.

By format, with the shape and size each one usually ships at.

On ads, one Nano Banana Pro render at 2K that spells the headline beats three Nano Banana 2 rounds that do not. For a series, save the winning prompt and attach the first ad as the photo when you make the second, so the set matches. Our image generator page has prompts for each format.

Nano Banana Pro

The price, and the wait. It is the most expensive image model in the family, 4K doubles it, and it is the slowest of the four, so it is the wrong model to iterate on. Its look is restrained and literal: a crowded prompt comes back as a crowded image, and drama has to be written in.

Nano Banana 2

Long text and dense layouts. It will spell a sign and lose a paragraph. On a tricky edit it drifts a little more than Pro: a face that is almost the same face. It is the model to start on, not always the one to finish on.

Nano Banana and Nano Banana Lite

1K only, so nothing for print, and little text beyond a word or two. The original needs a shape named; it has no Auto. Lite trades some fidelity for its speed, and it shows on fine detail, hair, fabric weave, small type.

Every render from all four carries SynthID, Google's invisible watermark. You will not see it in the image, nothing on this page removes it, and nothing should.

1. Open Compare and switch it from video to image.
2. Pick Nano Banana Pro, Nano Banana 2, Nano Banana and Nano Banana Lite, one in each lane.
3. Write the prompt once: subject, action, setting, light, any exact text in quotation marks, and the shape.
4. Run it. Nano Banana 2 renders at 0.5K and the other three at 1K. Compare sends no shape, so the original Nano Banana comes back square while the other three read the shape from your words; rerun it in the Image studio with the shape picked for a fair match. A lane that fails is not charged.
5. Judge on what the job needs: the words, the face, the label. Then open the winner in the Image studio, Nano Banana Pro, Nano Banana 2, Nano Banana or Nano Banana Lite, at the size and count you need.

For an edit, skip Compare and open the model in the studio with the photo attached. For a still that should move, send the render to the Video studio as a start frame; the image to video page shows the method.