Okay, let’s get into it. I’ve spent the last few months buried in both Runway and Leonardo AI, trying to figure out which one actually saves me time and which one just looks good in a demo. I’m a solo creative director who does a mix of ad mockups, short social video, and concept art for pitches. I’m not a coder, and I don’t have a render farm. So when I compare these two, I’m looking at what gets me from blank screen to “send to client” fastest, and what makes me look like I have a bigger team than I do.
Quick Overview
Runway is a video-first AI production suite. It’s built for motion, generative video, and real-time editing. Think of it as a Swiss Army knife for filmmakers, editors, and motion designers who want to generate clips from text, remove backgrounds with a click, or extend footage beyond its original frame. It’s less about static image perfection and more about “I need a 10-second clip of a flamingo walking through a cyberpunk market” and getting it in two minutes.
Leonardo AI, on the other hand, is a game art and concept design powerhouse that has recently pivoted hard into video generation. It started as a Midjourney competitor for game assets and character designs, but now it has its own video model (Motion) and a whole suite of tools for generating consistent characters, environments, and even animation layers. If Runway is a film editing bay, Leonardo is a concept artist’s studio with a 3D printer in the corner. It’s better for maintaining a consistent style across dozens of assets, but its video tools feel more like an add-on than the main event.
The short version: Runway wins for polished, controllable video generation and editing. Leonardo wins for high-quality, stylized static images and consistent character design, with video as a bonus feature. If you need a talking head or a seamless product shot with motion, choose Runway. If you need a 50-image character sheet for a game or a stylized animation loop, choose Leonardo.
Feature Comparison
Here’s the real breakdown from my daily use. I’ve tested every single one of these features in actual projects.
| Feature | Runway | Leonardo AI |
|---|---|---|
| Text-to-Video Quality | Excellent. Gen-3 Alpha produces smooth, physically plausible motion. I made a “spilled coffee spreading on a white table” clip that looked like stock footage. | Good, but more stylized and less realistic. Their Motion model tends to warp faces and hands more. I tried “a wolf howling at the moon” and got a wolf with three legs. |
| Image-to-Video | Fantastic. You upload a photo and it animates it. I took a flat illustration of a car and turned it into a drifting shot. Very controllable with motion brush. | Decent, but limited. You can animate an image with a prompt, but the motion is less predictable. I uploaded a character portrait and it made her blink and tilt her head, but the background flickered. |
| Text-to-Image Quality | Good, but not best-in-class. Runway’s images are fine for mood boards or backgrounds, but they lack the crisp detail and lighting of dedicated image generators. | Excellent. This is Leonardo’s home turf. Their Phoenix model produces photorealistic or highly stylized images with consistent lighting and sharp details. I generated a “steampunk airship dock” that looked like a concept art piece. |
| Consistent Characters | Weak. No built-in character reference system. You have to manually feed it the same image and prompt, and it still changes the face every time. | Strong. You can upload a character reference and generate new poses, outfits, and angles with the same face. I used this for a series of “cyberpunk bartender” images and the face stayed identical across 20 generations. |
| Video Editing (in-painting/out-painting) | Best in class. The “Remove Object” tool is magic. I removed a microphone from a talking head video in seconds. Also, the “Extend Frame” feature lets you expand a video’s canvas. | None. You cannot edit a generated video after the fact. You have to re-generate the whole clip. This is a dealbreaker for me. |
| Real-time Generation | Yes, for image-to-video and text-to-image. You can see a rough version in seconds, then refine. Very useful for iterative work. | Yes, for image generation. The “Real-Time” canvas is great for sketching ideas. But video generation takes 30-60 seconds. |
| Control (Camera movements, motion strength) | High. You can specify camera pans, zooms, and motion intensity. I dialed in a “slow push-in on a rain-streaked window” and it nailed it. | Low. You can add a camera motion prompt (e.g., “camera dolly left”) but it often ignores it or produces jittery results. |
| Upscaling | Built-in upscaler works okay, but it can introduce artifacts. I upscaled a 720p clip to 1080p and it looked slightly soft. | Excellent dedicated upscaler. Their “Ultra Upscale” option (paid) produces clean 4K images from 1024x1024 sources. I’ve printed these. |
| Background Removal | One-click. Works on video and images. I removed a green screen from a test video without any keying—just clicked “Remove Background.” | Yes, but only for images. It’s a simple eraser tool, not as clean as Runway’s AI-powered matting. |
| Interface & Learning Curve | Clean, modern, intuitive. I had a video generated in 5 minutes after signing up. The timeline-based editor is familiar to anyone who’s used Premiere or Final Cut. | More cluttered. Lots of sliders, models, and presets. I spent an hour just understanding the difference between “Phoenix,” “Lightning,” and “Motion” models. More powerful, but steeper learning curve. |
| Community & Assets | Limited. You can browse public generations, but it’s not a huge library. | Massive. The “Feed” is full of high-quality images and prompts. I found dozens of great “cyberpunk city” prompts just by browsing. Great for inspiration. |
Using Runway
My first real project with Runway was a 15-second social ad for a client selling a new type of ergonomic chair. The brief was: “Show the chair in a modern office, but make it feel alive—like the space is breathing.” I started with text-to-video: “Slow cinematic dolly around a white ergonomic chair in a sunlit minimalist office, dust particles floating in light.” Gen-3 Alpha gave me a 5-second clip that was 90% usable. The chair looked solid, the light was warm, and the dust particles actually moved naturally. The problem was the background wall had a weird texture glitch.
Instead of re-generating the whole clip (which would change the chair’s angle), I used Runway’s In-Paint Video tool. I masked the wall area and typed “smooth white wall with subtle texture.” It fixed it in about 20 seconds. Then I needed the clip to be longer—the ad needed to be 10 seconds. I used Extend Frames to add 3 seconds to the end, prompting for a slow zoom out. It added a smooth camera pull that matched the original motion. No re-rendering, no re-prompting. That’s the killer feature: Runway treats video like a malleable material.
Another time, I had a client who wanted a “futuristic product shot” of a smartwatch. I shot a real video of the watch on a table (bad lighting, messy background). I uploaded it to Runway, used Remove Background (it gave me a clean alpha matte in one click), then used Image-to-Video with a prompt like “watch floating in a neon grid, slow rotation.” It generated a 5-second clip where the watch rotated exactly 180 degrees, with neon reflections that matched the original metal band. I dropped it into my timeline as an overlay. Total time: 10 minutes. If I’d tried that in After Effects, it would have taken two hours and a 3D model.
The downside? Runway’s image generation is mediocre. I tried to generate a “hero image” for the same watch ad—a high-res static shot—and it came out blurry and with weird lighting. I ended up using Midjourney for the still and Runway for the video. Also, Runway’s free tier is laughably slow. I had to wait 5 minutes for a single 5-second generation. The paid plan is fast, but you’ll burn through credits if you’re doing lots of iterations.
Using Leonardo AI
I turned to Leonardo AI when I needed to build a consistent visual world for a pitch deck. The project was a concept for a “solarpunk coffee shop” chain—think bamboo, solar panels, and neon plant life. I needed 30+ images: the exterior, the interior, the menu board, the barista uniform, the cups, the logo on the wall. Everything had to look like it belonged in the same universe.
I started by generating a character reference for the barista. I used the prompt: “Young woman with braided hair, wearing a green apron with solar panel pattern, smiling, warm light.” Leonardo’s Character Reference feature let me lock that face. Then I generated her in different poses: making coffee, wiping a table, handing a cup to a customer. The face stayed identical across all 12 images. I’ve tried this in Midjourney—it’s a nightmare. Leonardo’s consistency is its superpower.
For the coffee shop itself, I used the Image-to-Image feature. I took a photo of a real coffee shop interior (from Unsplash) and uploaded it. I set the prompt: “Solarpunk coffee shop, bamboo counters, vertical gardens, solar panel skylights, warm orange and green lighting, photorealistic.” With the “Strength” slider at 0.7, it transformed the real photo into my concept while keeping the layout and perspective. I did this for 5 different angles: the counter, the seating area, the entrance. Every image had the same style, the same lighting, and the same design language. The client said, “Wow, you actually built this.” I didn’t—I just generated it.
The video side? That’s where I hit a wall. I wanted to create a 10-second loop of the barista pouring a latte. I generated a still of her hand pouring, then used Leonardo’s Motion feature. I prompted: “Slow pour of latte art, steam rising, smooth motion.” The output was a 3-second clip that looked like a GIF from 2010. The motion was jerky, the steam looked like smoke from a fire, and her hand warped into a claw. I tried twice more, adjusting the prompt, but the results were never smooth. I ended up taking the still images into Runway and using Image-to-Video there, which gave me a much better result. So Leonardo for the still, Runway for the motion.
One more thing: Leonardo’s Upscaler is genuinely good. I took a 1024x1024 image of the coffee shop exterior and used the “Ultra Upscale” (paid credits) to 4096x4096. I printed it on a 24x24 inch canvas for the pitch meeting. It looked sharp, with no pixelation or weird artifacts. I can’t do that with Runway’s upscaler.
Pricing
I’m on the Standard plan for both, but here’s how they break down:
Runway:
- Free: 125 credits (about 5 video generations). Very slow queue.
- Standard ($15/month): 625 credits. Fast generation. Unlimited exports. Includes all tools (Remove Background, In-Paint, Extend). This is where it becomes usable.
- Pro ($35/month): 2,250 credits. No watermark. Priority queue. 4K export.
- Unlimited ($95/month): Unlimited generations (fair use). Best for heavy users.
- Credit burn: Text-to-video costs 5-10 credits per clip. In-Paint costs 1-3 credits per frame. A 10-second video with edits might cost 40-60 credits.
Leonardo AI:
- Free: 150 tokens per day. Slower generation. Watermarked images.
- Apprentice ($12/month): 8,500 tokens per month. No watermark. Fast generation. Access to all models.
- Artisan ($30/month): 25,000 tokens. Priority queue. Upscaler included.
- Maestro ($60/month): 60,000 tokens. Pro-level upscaler. API access.
- Token burn: A standard image generation costs 2-5 tokens. A video generation costs 50-100 tokens. An ultra upscale costs 25 tokens. So video is expensive on Leonardo.
My take: Runway’s Standard plan ($15) is a better value if you’re doing video. You get 625 credits, and a 5-second clip costs 10 credits—that’s 62 clips per month. Leonardo’s Apprentice ($12) gives you 8,500 tokens, but a single video can eat 100 tokens, leaving you with only 85 video generations. And those videos are lower quality. For still images, Leonardo is cheaper per output.
Verdict
I use both, but for different jobs.
Choose Runway if:
- Your primary output is video—social clips, product demos, short films.
- You need to edit existing video (remove objects, extend frames, change backgrounds).
- You want fast, controllable motion with camera movements.
- You’re willing to sacrifice some image quality for motion smoothness.
Choose Leonardo AI if:
- You need a massive library of consistent, high-quality static images (concept art, character design, game assets).
- You want to maintain a character’s face across multiple poses and scenes.
- You need to upscale images to print-ready resolutions.
- You’re okay with video being a secondary, less polished feature.
My honest workflow now: I generate all my concept images and character sheets in Leonardo AI. I export them as high-res PNGs. Then I import those into Runway for any animation or video extension. I use Runway’s text-to-video for motion backgrounds or product shots that don’t need a specific character. I use Leonardo’s upscaler for final print assets. It’s not a one-tool solution, but together they cover everything from “here’s the idea” to “here’s the video.” If I had to pick only one? For my work (video-heavy), it’s Runway. For a game artist or illustrator, it’s Leonardo.
