DALL-E (Discontinued) vs StepFun Step 3.5 Flash
Which one should you pick? Here's the full breakdown.
DALL-E (Discontinued)
OpenAI's DALL-E 2 and DALL-E 3 -- DEPRECATED. API shuts down May 12, 2026. DALL-E 3 already removed from ChatGPT in December 2025. See alternatives: Nano Banana 2, Midjourney, FLUX.2 [klein], Ideogram
StepFun Step 3.5 Flash
StepFun's (China) agent-focused open-weight model -- Step 3.5 Flash launched 2026-02-01. 196B sparse MoE, ~11B active. Benchmarks slightly ahead of DeepSeek V3.2 at over 3x smaller total size. Step 3 (321B / 38B active, Apache 2.0) and Step3-VL-10B multimodal also in the family
| Category | DALL-E (Discontinued) | StepFun Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 9.0 | 6.0 |
| Output Quality | 8.0 | 8.0 |
| Value | 1.0 | 9.0 |
| Features | 3.0 | 8.0 |
| Overall | 5.0 | 7.8 |
Pricing Comparison
| Feature | DALL-E (Discontinued) | StepFun Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | No | Yes |
| Starting Price | N/A | $0 |
Which Should You Pick?
Pick DALL-E (Discontinued) if...
- ✓Easier to use (9 vs 6)
Historical context only. If you have an API integration with DALL-E, migrate before May 12, 2026. Choose from: GPT Image inside ChatGPT (direct replacement), Nano Banana 2 (best text-in-image), Midjourney (best artistic), FLUX.2 [klein] (best open-weight), or Ideogram (strong text).
Visit DALL-E (Discontinued)Pick StepFun Step 3.5 Flash if...
- ✓Better value for money (9/10)
- ✓More features (8 vs 3)
- ✓Has a free tier
Teams building agent systems on Chinese open-weight foundations who want something other than DeepSeek or Qwen, especially if agentic tool-use is the primary workload. Also good for Chinese-market products where StepFun's domestic tuning advantages matter. And for anyone looking to add diversity to their open-weight evaluation matrix beyond the top-3 Chinese labs.
Visit StepFun Step 3.5 FlashOur Verdict
StepFun Step 3.5 Flash is the clear winner here with 7.8/10 vs 5.0/10. DALL-E (Discontinued) isn't bad, but StepFun Step 3.5 Flash outperforms it across the board. Pick DALL-E (Discontinued) only if historical context only.