Updated 2026-10-27
Nano Banana 2.1 vs GPT Image 2.5
For editing photos, GPT Image 2.5: in our ten same-photo edits it did better four times and Nano Banana 2.1 twice, with four ties. The exception is restoring old photos, where Nano Banana 2.1 kept the faces and the framing both times. For generating from a prompt the two were close in our eight tests at the same price (GPT Image 2.5 won once, by not adding words to a poster), so pick by format: Nano Banana 2.1 for 4K and very wide banners, GPT Image 2.5 for transparent cutouts.
Nano Banana 2.1 on zzo.ai costs 10 credits ($0.10) per image at 1K quality. GPT Image 2.5 on zzo.ai costs 15 credits ($0.15) per image at High quality.
Same prompt, both models
We ran each one ourselves on zzo.ai: the same prompt (and, for an edit, the same photo) with the site’s settings, once per model. Nothing was re-run to get a better take.
Restore a faded colour print: Nano Banana 2.1
Nano Banana 2.1 kept the whole frame, both faces and the brown suit, and removed the table and the border as asked. GPT Image 2.5 removed them too, but cropped in, redrew the faces and turned the suit grey, although the prompt says to keep clothing, faces and framing.
Restore and colourise a torn 1948 photo: Nano Banana 2.1
Both repaired the tear and the scratches and chose restrained colours. Nano Banana 2.1 kept all three faces close to the original. GPT Image 2.5 kept the worn border and the grain, but redrew the man on the right with a smoother, younger face.
New coat, rain and a word on the window: a tie
Both changed the coat, made it rain and kept her face, the cup, the bicycle and the plain back wall. GPT Image 2.5 made it evening and wrote OPEN LATE so it reads from inside, but dropped the teal bag strap. Nano Banana 2.1 kept the strap, but painted the words mirrored, as seen from the street, and kept more daylight.
Remove an object: GPT Image 2.5
Both removed the sunflower and kept the face, the hat and the wall. GPT Image 2.5 lowered his hand out of the frame. Nano Banana 2.1 left the hand at his chest, closed around nothing.
Add a dog from a second photo: GPT Image 2.5
GPT Image 2.5 sat the dog beside her at the right size, in the same light. Nano Banana 2.1 stood the dog on the bench, larger and flatter, so it looks pasted in. The woman and the park stayed the same in both.
Clean up a cluttered table: GPT Image 2.5
Both removed every cable, plate and paper and kept the plant and the lamp. GPT Image 2.5 kept the rug and left a clean table. Nano Banana 2.1 removed the rug as well and left a faint dark patch where a mug stood.
Summer to winter: GPT Image 2.5
Both kept the houses, the parked cars and the framing. GPT Image 2.5 gave a snowy evening with lit windows and falling snow. Nano Banana 2.1 made it wintry and dusky too, but with little falling snow and a dark rectangle left on the road.
Retouch a portrait: a tie
Both cleared the blemishes and the redness and kept his features, hair and expression. GPT Image 2.5 lit the face more evenly and turned the background bluer; Nano Banana 2.1 kept a little more skin texture.
Put a logo on a product: a tie
Both printed the logo below the dial and left the radio, the backdrop and the shadow alone. Nano Banana 2.1 set it on one line; GPT Image 2.5 stacked it smaller.
Fix the date on a poster: a tie
Both changed Friday, October 17 to Saturday, October 18 and kept every other line. Neither left the rest untouched: outside the date line about 4% of pixels moved noticeably in both, and GPT Image 2.5’s version came out a shade darker. Compare the whole poster with your original.
Concert poster with exact text: a tie
Both spelled every line, middle dot included, and added nothing. GPT Image 2.5 gave flat, full-bleed artwork; Nano Banana 2.1 showed the poster as a sheet lying on a surface, as Fuser also found.
Coffee bag product shot: a tie
Both spelled SUMMIT ROAST cleanly and both added small print of their own (a net weight, a roast level), all spelled correctly. Add “no other text on the packaging” if the bag must say only what you wrote.
Candid portrait: a tie
Both have the wrinkles, the tattoos, the net and the dog. GPT Image 2.5 is sharper and closer, with heavier skin detail; Nano Banana 2.1 reads more like a documentary photo, as CellCog also found.
Two people in a studio: a tie
Both faces are sharp in both, with clay on his hands and window light from the left. Nano Banana 2.1 framed wider, with both people fully in the picture; GPT Image 2.5 framed tighter and cut the man at the edge.
Cinematic still: a tie
Both have the yellow staircase, the pink stucco and the green dress. GPT Image 2.5 shot from lower and closer, and added a MOTEL sign and room numbers nobody asked for. Nano Banana 2.1 stayed wider and plainer.
Jazz poster, does it add words? GPT Image 2.5
Both spelled MIDNIGHT BRASS and the date line. GPT Image 2.5 used exactly the requested text. Nano Banana 2.1 set the date line in capitals and added two lines of its own, LIVE JAZZ NIGHT and FEATURING SPECIAL GUESTS, just as in BulkImagen’s test of this prompt, which has no “No other text” line.
Light show poster: a tie
Both spelled the headline and the subtitle exactly, middle dots and en dash included. GPT Image 2.5 drew an atmospheric garden with a bridge and a pavilion; Nano Banana 2.1 framed the title with flat, glowing leaves. Felo, whose prompt this is, saw the same split: GPT for mood, 2.1 for a graphic poster.
The same poster in Japanese: a tie
Both wrote ナイトガーデン and 植物のライトショー・京都・19〜21時 correctly (we had the Japanese checked before publishing). Nano Banana 2.1 broke the subtitle over two lines and dropped the middle dot at the break; GPT Image 2.5 kept it on one line and added a pagoda to the garden. Felo saw both models keep the Japanese copy too, but have a native speaker read yours.
Which to pick
zzo.ai sells both models, at the prices on this page. The picks follow the specs and limits listed here.
| Scenario | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Edit one thing, keep the rest | GPT Image 2.5 | Our tests above: better on four of ten edits, against two for Nano Banana 2.1. CellCog (25 October 2026) found the same: GPT Image 2.5 “left the wall, plant, shadows and framing almost untouched”, while Nano Banana 2.1 cropped every photo tighter. |
| Restore an old photo | Nano Banana 2.1 | In both of our restorations above it kept the faces and the framing that GPT Image 2.5 changed. WeShop’s 2.1 restoration test also kept all three identities. |
| Keep one face from a photo | GPT Image 2.5, usually | Fuser: GPT Image 2.5 “carried the face over clearly”, while 2.1 loosened the curls and faded the freckles. Not every time: in BulkImagen’s Halloween test 2.1 kept the face better. |
| Product shot from a written brief | Nano Banana 2.1, narrowly | Fuser and BulkImagen: 2.1 followed the set, the light and the empty space most literally. Atlas Cloud called it a tie, and CellCog preferred GPT Image 2.5 after 2.1 put a shadow on the wrong side. |
| Put a product in a new setting, unchanged | GPT Image 2.5 | Fuser’s bottle edit: GPT Image 2.5 “changed nothing the prompt said to keep”; 2.1 kept the label but restyled the cap. |
| Posters and exact text | Either, GPT Image 2.5 for exact copy | Both spelled every line on all five of our posters, including one in Japanese. But on MIDNIGHT BRASS, Nano Banana 2.1 added two lines nobody asked for, as it did in BulkImagen’s test, while GPT Image 2.5 kept to the copy. Fuser and CellCog found a tie, and Atlas Cloud preferred 2.1 for matching a footer exactly. End your prompt with “No other text”. |
| Natural, documentary-style photos | Either | Even in our two portraits. GPT Image 2.5 is sharper with heavier skin detail, Nano Banana 2.1 looks more like a documentary photo (CellCog saw the same); Fuser gave GPT Image 2.5 a narrow win. |
| Add a pet or an object to a photo | Try both | In our dog test GPT Image 2.5 placed it naturally and Nano Banana 2.1 made it look pasted in. In CellCog’s cat test it went the other way: 2.1’s cat was “the most natural”. |
| Charts and infographics | Nano Banana 2.1, check it | CellCog: only 2.1 drew the bars to scale. But it can add words: BulkImagen found an extra sentence with a misspelling, and in our water-cycle test it named two stages “Condensation”. |
| Transparent PNG | GPT Image 2.5 | Only GPT Image 2.5 returns a real transparent background. Nano Banana 2.1 always fills the background. |
| 4K and very wide banners | Nano Banana 2.1 | Nano Banana 2.1 goes up to 4K and to 4:1 and 8:1 banners. GPT Image 2.5 stops at 1280 pixels on the long side here, and at 16:9. |
Specs side by side
| Nano Banana 2.1 | GPT Image 2.5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | OpenAI | |
| Released | 2026-10-06 | — |
| Type | Image | Image |
| Modes | Text to image, Edit image | Text to image, Edit image |
| Quality | 1K, 2K, 4K | Low, Medium, High, Extra high, Max |
| Images per request | 4 | 4 |
| Aspect ratios | 1:1, 16:9, 9:16, 4:3, 3:4, 3:2, 2:3, 21:9, 4:1, 8:1 | 1:1, 4:3, 3:4, 16:9, 9:16 |
| Versions | — | GPT Image 2.5 Flare, GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst |
| Commercial use | Allowed, under our terms | Allowed, under our terms |
| Failed generations | Credits refunded automatically | Credits refunded automatically |
| Starts at | 10 ($0.10) | 5 ($0.05) |
How we tested
Each pair above is one prompt, and for an edit one photo, run once on each model on zzo.ai with the site’s own settings. Edits use GPT Image 2.5 at high quality and Nano Banana 2.1 at its default 1K (2K for the 1948 photo). Generations are at the same price per image: GPT Image 2.5 at high, Nano Banana 2.1 at 2K. The input photos are fictional and were made with AI. Every prompt comes from a published guide or test (OpenAI, Google, Fuser, Atlas Cloud, BulkImagen, WeShop, a Reddit user), and nothing was re-run to get a better take. One run per model is a tendency, not a benchmark.
What independent tests found
- CellCog (24 prompts, 25 October 2026): GPT Image 2.5 won 9, Nano Banana 2.1 won 5, 10 ties. Without the transparency tasks, their average scores were 4.67 and 4.62.
- Fuser (5 tasks, 6 October 2026): GPT Image 2.5 won the character task clearly and the photo and edit tasks narrowly; Nano Banana 2.1 won the product shot; the poster was a tie.
- Atlas Cloud (4 rounds, October 2026): Nano Banana 2.1 took or shared three of the four rounds.
- BulkImagen (6 prompts, 7 October 2026): GPT Image 2.5 was the only model with no visible defect in its run.
- Arena crowd votes, as reported on 19 October 2026 and still preliminary: GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst ahead of Nano Banana 2.1 by about 100 points on both text-to-image and single-image editing.
All four test sites sell access to these models, and each ran a prompt once.
Where each one slips
- Nano Banana 2.1: re-crops or restages edits, adds words you didn’t ask for, and can mirror or invent lettering on signs. Small text blurs at 1K.
- GPT Image 2.5: can drop a small detail (a bag strap, a chalk underline) or change clothing in a restoration, and large plain areas can show a fine grain. No 4K and nothing wider than 16:9.
Questions
Which is cheaper, Nano Banana 2.1 or GPT Image 2.5?
Nano Banana 2.1 on zzo.ai costs 10 credits ($0.10) per image at 1K quality. GPT Image 2.5 on zzo.ai costs 15 credits ($0.15) per image at High quality. There is no subscription: buy credits once, use them on either model, and failed generations are refunded automatically.
Is Nano Banana 2.1 better than GPT Image 2.5?
Not overall. In our 18 same-prompt tests GPT Image 2.5 did better on four edits and one poster, Nano Banana 2.1 on two restorations, and the rest were ties. CellCog’s 24 prompts (25 October 2026) went 9 to 5 for GPT Image 2.5 with 10 ties; Atlas Cloud’s four rounds leaned to 2.1. Pick GPT Image 2.5 for edits and cutouts, Nano Banana 2.1 for restorations, 4K and wide banners.
Which is better for editing photos?
GPT Image 2.5 for most edits: removing an object, cleaning up a photo, changing the season or adding a pet went its way in our tests, and testers found Nano Banana 2.1 re-crops and redraws more. Nano Banana 2.1 for restoring old photos, where it kept the faces both times. Both take up to four photos in one edit here.
Which one keeps my face?
Usually GPT Image 2.5, but not every time, and neither keeps a face pixel for pixel. Name what must stay (face, features, hair, expression), change one thing per edit, and compare with your original.
Which one makes a transparent background?
Only GPT Image 2.5. Switch on Transparent background and you get a PNG with a real alpha channel. Nano Banana 2.1 doesn’t offer transparent output.
Which is faster?
They are close. CellCog measured a median of about 31 seconds for Nano Banana 2.1 at 2K and 29 for GPT Image 2.5 at high quality. In our own sample runs most Nano Banana 2.1 images took 15 to 36 seconds (one took 82) and GPT Image 2.5 images 19 to 32.
Can I use both with one account?
Yes. One account and one credit balance cover both models, on the website and through the API. Run the same prompt on each and keep the one you like.