mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

SDXL-Lightning: Progressive Adversarial Diffusion Distillation

arXiv 2402.13929 ↗First posted 21 Feb 2024cs.CV cs.AI cs.LGcited by 258

On the map: Diffusion models → Diffusion foundations and sampling

Abstract (arXiv)

We propose a diffusion distillation method that achieves new state-of-the-art in one-step/few-step 1024px text-to-image generation based on SDXL. Our method combines progressive and adversarial distillation to achieve a balance between quality and mode coverage. In this paper, we discuss the theoretical analysis, discriminator design, model formulation, and training techniques. We open-source our distilled SDXL-Lightning models both as LoRA and full UNet weights.

Key facts. Cited by 258 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Diffusion foundations and sampling, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 62 of its 79 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 21 Feb 2024.

Builds on

62 of 79 references.

Closest ancestors · 22

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2023Diffusion Model with Perceptual Loss30 Dec
  2. 2023Smooth Diffusion: Crafting Smooth Latent Spaces in Diffusion Models7 Dec
  3. 2023One-step Diffusion with Distribution Matching Distillation30 Nov
  4. 2023LCM-LoRA: A Universal Stable-Diffusion Acceleration Module9 Nov
  5. 2023Improved Techniques for Training Consistency Models22 Oct
  6. 2023Latent Consistency Models: Synthesizing High-Resolution Images with Few-Step Inference6 Oct
  7. 2023Consistency Trajectory Models: Learning Probability Flow ODE Trajectory of Diffusion1 Oct
  8. 2023PixArt-α: Fast Training of Diffusion Transformer for Photorealistic Text-to-Image Synthesis30 Sep
  9. 2023SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesis4 Jul
  10. 2023Common Diffusion Noise Schedules and Sample Steps are Flawed15 May
  11. 2023Consistency Models2 Mar
  12. 2023UniPC: A Unified Predictor-Corrector Framework for Fast Sampling of Diffusion Models9 Feb
10 more
  1. 2022DPM-Solver++: Fast Solver for Guided Sampling of Diffusion Probabilistic Models2 Nov
  2. 2022Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance26 Jul
  3. 2022DPM-Solver: A Fast ODE Solver for Diffusion Probabilistic Model Sampling in Around 10 Steps2 Jun
  4. 2022Elucidating the Design Space of Diffusion-Based Generative Models1 Jun
  5. 2022Pseudo Numerical Methods for Diffusion Models on Manifolds20 Feb
  6. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models20 Dec
  7. 2021Tackling the Generative Learning Trilemma with Denoising Diffusion GANs15 Dec
  8. 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations26 Nov
  9. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models6 Oct
  10. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models19 Jun

Other references · 40

  1. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,456
  2. 2015U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentationcited by 19,604
  3. 2014Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Contextcited by 17,498
  4. 2021LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Modelscited by 14,084
  5. 2018The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metriccited by 11,029
  6. 2023DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervisioncited by 7,764
  7. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,005
  8. 2022Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latentscited by 6,539
  9. 2022Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understandingcited by 6,322
  10. 2022Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 5,603
  11. 2023Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 5,466
  12. 2015Rethinking the Inception Architecture for Computer Visioncited by 5,451
28 more
  1. 2022Flow Matching for Generative Modelingcited by 5,426
  2. 2022LAION-5B: An open large-scale dataset for training next generation image-text modelscited by 4,131
  3. 2013Auto-Encoding Variational Bayescited by 3,980
  4. 2022FlashAttention: Fast and Memory-Efficient Exact Attention with IO-Awarenesscited by 3,611
  5. 2019Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGANcited by 3,580
  6. 2022Flow Straight and Fast: Learning to Generate and Transfer Data with Rectified Flowcited by 3,550
  7. 2022DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusioncited by 3,006
  8. 2023FlashAttention-2: Faster Attention with Better Parallelism and Work Partitioningcited by 2,551
  9. 2023Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasetscited by 2,526
  10. 2021SDEdit: Guided Image Synthesis and Editing with Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 1,903
  11. 2022Make-A-Video: Text-to-Video Generation without Text-Video Datacited by 1,725
  12. 2018Group Normalizationcited by 1,514
  13. 2023Align your Latents: High-Resolution Video Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 1,465
  14. 2023IP-Adapter: Text Compatible Image Prompt Adapter for Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 1,439
  15. 2023AnimateDiff: Animate Your Personalized Text-to-Image Diffusion Models without Specific Tuningcited by 1,418
  16. 2023ProlificDreamer: High-Fidelity and Diverse Text-to-3D Generation with Variational Score Distillationcited by 1,207
  17. 2020Training Generative Adversarial Networks with Limited Datacited by 1,184
  18. 2017Mixed Precision Trainingcited by 1,135
  19. 2018Which Training Methods for GANs do actually Converge?cited by 672
  20. 2023Scaling up GANs for Text-to-Image Synthesiscited by 492
  21. 2022MagicVideo: Efficient Video Generation With Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 463
  22. 2023InstaFlow: One Step is Enough for High-Quality Diffusion-Based Text-to-Image Generationcited by 387
  23. 2023StyleGAN-T: Unlocking the Power of GANs for Fast Large-Scale Text-to-Image Synthesiscited by 212
  24. 2021Projected GANs Converge Fastercited by 204
  25. 2020The Lipschitz Constant of Self-Attentioncited by 171
  26. 2023UFOGen: You Forward Once Large Scale Text-to-Image Generation via Diffusion GANscited by 165
  27. 2022MoVQ: Modulating Quantized Vectors for High-Fidelity Image Generationcited by 125
  28. 2023Wuerstchen: An Efficient Architecture for Large-Scale Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 50

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 85; 2025: 103; 2026: 70.

258 papers.

Sort:

By area:

  1. 2024Improved Distribution Matching Distillation for Fast Image Synthesiscited by 648
  2. 2024From Slow Bidirectional to Fast Autoregressive Video Diffusion Modelscited by 401
  3. 2024Fast High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Adversarial Diffusion Distillationcited by 276
  4. 2024Delta-DiT: A Training-Free Acceleration Method Tailored for Diffusion Transformerscited by 169
  5. 2025Difix3D+: Improving 3D Reconstructions with Single-Step Diffusion Modelscited by 160
  6. 2024Hyper-SD: Trajectory Segmented Consistency Model for Efficient Image Synthesiscited by 153
  7. 2025WorldPlay: Towards Long-Term Geometric Consistency for Real-Time Interactive World Modelingcited by 152
  8. 2024PuLID: Pure and Lightning ID Customization via Contrastive Alignmentcited by 143
  9. 2025Diffusion Adversarial Post-Training for One-Step Video Generationcited by 142
  10. 2024Consistency Models Made Easycited by 140
  11. 2024Learning-to-Cache: Accelerating Diffusion Transformer via Layer Cachingcited by 138
  12. 2024CFG++: Manifold-constrained Classifier Free Guidance for Diffusion Modelscited by 138
38 more
  1. 2024MV-Adapter: Multi-view Consistent Image Generation Made Easycited by 111
  2. 2024Eliminating Oversaturation and Artifacts of High Guidance Scales in Diffusion Modelscited by 107
  3. 2025Autoregressive Adversarial Post-Training for Real-Time Interactive Video Generationcited by 84
  4. 2024Phased Consistency Modelscited by 83
  5. 2024GenAI Arena: An Open Evaluation Platform for Generative Modelscited by 81
  6. 2025Large Scale Diffusion Distillation via Score-Regularized Continuous-Time Consistencycited by 81
  7. 2024Distilling Diffusion Models into Conditional GANscited by 78
  8. 2024Not All Noises Are Created Equally:Diffusion Noise Selection and Optimizationcited by 70
  9. 2024One-Step Diffusion Distillation through Score Implicit Matchingcited by 68
  10. 2024AddSR: Accelerating Diffusion-based Blind Super-Resolution with Adversarial Diffusion Distillationcited by 66
  11. 2024TurboEdit: Text-Based Image Editing Using Few-Step Diffusion Modelscited by 64
  12. 2024EM Distillation for One-step Diffusion Modelscited by 60
  13. 2024Rectified Diffusion: Straightness Is Not Your Need in Rectified Flowcited by 59
  14. 2024Controlling Language and Diffusion Models by Transporting Activationscited by 59
  15. 2024Flash Diffusion: Accelerating Any Conditional Diffusion Model for Few Steps Image Generationcited by 56
  16. 2026Helios: Real Real-Time Long Video Generation Modelcited by 56
  17. 2024Adversarial Diffusion Compression for Real-World Image Super-Resolutioncited by 49
  18. 2024A Noise is Worth Diffusion Guidancecited by 48
  19. 2025T2ISafety: Benchmark for Assessing Fairness, Toxicity, and Privacy in Image Generationcited by 47
  20. 2024SwiftBrush v2: Make Your One-step Diffusion Model Better Than Its Teachercited by 45
  21. 2025SeedVR2: One-Step Video Restoration via Diffusion Adversarial Post-Trainingcited by 45
  22. 2024TinyFusion: Diffusion Transformers Learned Shallowcited by 44
  23. 2025Distribution Matching Distillation Meets Reinforcement Learningcited by 43
  24. 2024SF-V: Single Forward Video Generation Modelcited by 40
  25. 2024HiCo: Hierarchical Controllable Diffusion Model for Layout-to-image Generationcited by 39
  26. 2025Adversarial Distribution Matching for Diffusion Distillation Towards Efficient Image and Video Synthesiscited by 39
  27. 2024Motion Consistency Model: Accelerating Video Diffusion with Disentangled Motion-Appearance Distillationcited by 38
  28. 2024Zigzag Diffusion Sampling: Diffusion Models Can Self-Improve via Self-Reflectioncited by 38
  29. 2025Decoupled DMD: CFG Augmentation as the Spear, Distribution Matching as the Shieldcited by 38
  30. 2024Imagine Flash: Accelerating Emu Diffusion Models with Backward Distillationcited by 37
  31. 2024EvalMuse-40K: A Reliable and Fine-Grained Benchmark with Comprehensive Human Annotations for Text-to-Image Generation Model Evaluationcited by 37
  32. 2024OSV: One Step is Enough for High-Quality Image to Video Generationcited by 36
  33. 2025LBM: Latent Bridge Matching for Fast Image-to-Image Translationcited by 36
  34. 2024LazyDiT: Lazy Learning for the Acceleration of Diffusion Transformerscited by 35
  35. 2025InfiniteYou: Flexible Photo Recrafting While Preserving Your Identitycited by 34
  36. 2025FlashVideo: Flowing Fidelity to Detail for Efficient High-Resolution Video Generationcited by 32
  37. 2025Transition Models: Rethinking the Generative Learning Objectivecited by 32
  38. 2025SenseFlow: Scaling Distribution Matching for Flow-based Text-to-Image Distillationcited by 29

50 most cited of 258 All 258 (JSON)

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2024AnimateDiff-Lightning: Cross-Model Diffusion Distillation
  2. 2023Adversarial Diffusion Distillation
  3. 2024Progressive Knowledge Distillation Of Stable Diffusion XL Using Layer Level Loss
  4. 2025DiT-Air: Revisiting the Efficiency of Diffusion Model Architecture Design in Text to Image Generation
  5. 20261.x-Distill: Breaking the Diversity, Quality, and Efficiency Barrier in Distribution Matching Distillation
  6. 2023SwiftBrush: One-Step Text-to-Image Diffusion Model with Variational Score Distillation
  7. 2025Few-Step Distillation for Text-to-Image Generation: A Practical Guide
  8. 2025Progressive Rendering Distillation: Adapting Stable Diffusion for Instant Text-to-Mesh Generation without 3D Data