Merge vs Stable Video Diffusion

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.

Stable Video Diffusion is a model for generating video from Stable Diffusion. It supports text-to-video and image-to-video generation, including image-based animation. The product page describes outputs of 14 or 25 frames at customizable rates from 3 to 30 frames per second, with video creation stated as taking two minutes or less. Listed model versions include 14-frame, 25-frame, and 1.1 variants. Stability AI provides self-hosting instructions that involve downloading model weights and running the reference implementation locally or on your own infrastructure. Hosted API endpoints were deprecated on July 24, 2025, and API access is unavailable. Stability AI says its foundation models are available on Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker JumpStart. The Community License is listed at free for users below $1M in annual revenue, subject to model-specific terms. Businesses above that threshold are directed to Enterprise licensing with custom pricing.