Animate Photo AI vs Merge

Animate Photo AI turns a still image into a short video from a description of the motion a user wants. The web service is presented for portraits, pets, memories, drawings, product photos and scenery. Its photo-to-video tool accepts JPG, JPEG or PNG images up to 10 MB and offers choices for aspect ratio, quality, duration, camera locking, sound and AI video models. Duration options are 3, 5 and 10 seconds, with quality choices of 480p, 720p and 1080p. An AI Photo Editor accepts JPG, PNG or WebP images up to 12 MB and up to six reference images, and an edited result can be passed to Photo to Video. Sketch to Video handles sketches, line art, concept drawings and storyboard frames, with six aspect ratios, 480p output and a four-second default duration. Image Stitch processes source files in the browser and says originals are not sent to an upload API. The Free plan includes 50 credits; paid pricing starts at $7.90 per month billed annually.

Merge is an iOS app that turns a still photo and a reference motion video into an AI-generated motion video, with an optional style prompt. The site says generation takes under a minute. Listed creation types include AI dance videos, animated portraits, moving selfies and cinematic motion; output can reach 1080p. Users can save videos to their device or publish them to a community feed where people can browse and like them. Merge is listed for iPhone only and uses Apple Sign-In; Apple handles billing. Its free Starter plan includes 300 credits per month, Full HD videos and community feed access. Creator bills 1,000 credits per month and adds a priority generation queue, while Studio bills 3,000 credits per month and adds a top-priority queue. Selected photos are uploaded to temporary storage for generation and automatically deleted within about 48 hours. Merge lists English, Spanish, German, Dutch, Turkish and Russian.