Qiyu AI 奇域AI
Xiaohongshu's guofeng AI-art tool, now stripped of its community layer
Overview
Qiyu AI (奇域AI), launched by Xiaohongshu (RedNote) in December 2023, is a free AI image generator specialised in Chinese aesthetic styles: ink painting, gongbi, embroidery, shadow puppetry, with 70+ style models. Its community/co-creation features were dropped in October 2025.
Pricing
Pricing shown for reference only. These figures reflect RECATOOLS research as of 12 Jul 2026 and may be out of date or incomplete. This is not financial or purchasing advice — always confirm the current price on the provider’s official website before making any decision.
What you can produce with Qiyu AI 奇域AI
- 70+ Chinese-aesthetic style models (ink, gongbi, embroidery, shadow puppetry)
- Text-to-image with Chinese-language prompts
- Up to 8K output
- Style extension, inpainting, HD redraw editing tools
- WeChat mini-program and web access
- Credit-based free tier (check-in, referral, community rewards)
ASEAN Perspective
Qiyu AI 奇域AI in Southeast Asia
ASEAN-region availability and pricing notes coming soon. Drop the editorial team a note via /contact/ if you can supply local context (Singapore/Malaysia/Indonesia/Thailand/Vietnam).
Qiyu is Xiaohongshu's answer to the observation that generic Western-trained diffusion models handle Chinese cultural aesthetics badly: ink wash, gongbi, embroidery and shadow-puppet styling all come out as pastiche rather than the real thing. Qiyu's 70-plus style models, several credited to specific painters (Song Huizong, Zhang Daqian, Feng Zikai), are genuinely tuned for that gap, and it's the strongest option in this directory for guofeng and cultural-heritage imagery specifically. It's also had its wings clipped: Xiaohongshu pulled Qiyu's 灵感共创 (inspiration co-creation) and community/social features in October 2025 as part of a broader platform-wide pullback from AI-generated social content, leaving a bare generation tool with no showcase or interaction layer. It's still free during what the company calls an ongoing beta, credit-based rather than subscription, but Xiaohongshu's pattern of walking back AI features on this product is worth watching before recommending it as a long-term workflow.
What people say
Xiaohongshu launched Qiyu AI in December 2023, and it built an initial following specifically because it wasn't just another Stable Diffusion skin: its 70-plus style models are trained on specific Chinese art traditions, 国画 ink painting attributed to named historical painters (Song Huizong, Zhang Daqian, Feng Zikai are cited in Chinese coverage), 工笔 gongbi fine-brush work, embroidery, and 皮影 shadow-puppet styling. Chinese AI-tool directories consistently describe it as the go-to for 新中式 (new-Chinese-style) generation, a niche that mainstream Western models handle poorly because their training data skews heavily toward Western and anime aesthetics.
The product runs a credit economy rather than a subscription: 100 credits on signup, 100 more for a daily check-in, 200 for referring a friend, 50 when a posted work gets 'lit up' (liked or featured) by the community. Low-resolution generations cost 1 credit per batch of four images; high-resolution runs cost 5. As of the most recent coverage found, Qiyu is still free during what the company describes as an open beta, with a stated but unconfirmed intention to eventually sell credit top-ups.
The bigger story is Xiaohongshu's own retreat from AI-social features platform-wide. Reporting from around October 2025 (腾讯新闻, 搜狐, 钛媒体) documented Xiaohongshu pulling Qiyu's 灵感共创 co-creation feature and its community/showcase layer, leaving what one write-up called a tool stripped down to pure AI-generation utility with no social layer left. That fits a broader pattern: by early-to-mid 2026 Xiaohongshu had also started requiring AI-generated content to be labelled and had banned accounts running entirely on AI auto-posting, suggesting the company is wary of AI content feeding its own platform's authenticity problem, even on a tool it built and owns.
No G2/Capterra-style review coverage exists for Qiyu; what's available is Chinese AI-directory write-ups and the community-shutdown coverage above rather than structured user reviews. Given how recent the community-feature removal is, it's also unclear whether Qiyu's user base and content pipeline, previously fed partly by community showcases, has held up since.
Summary of public user & expert reviews, compiled by RECATOOLS.
About this listing
This entry was compiled from publicly available data including Qiyu AI 奇域AI's official website, press releases, documentation, and reputable third-party publications. RECATOOLS is not affiliated with Qiyu AI 奇域AI unless explicitly stated.
Third-party AI tools update their pricing, features, availability, and policies frequently. Information here may be outdated by the time you read this — we make reasonable efforts to keep listings current, but cannot guarantee absolute accuracy.
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