Civitai

license

Apache-2.0(OSI)

source

public(github.com/civitai/civitai)

core features withheld

yes — Buzz, signals and generation/training orchestration ship as private images

The site's code is public under Apache-2.0, but the README says the Buzz and signals services come from private images that only work for internal members, and generation, training, chat and notifications do not run outside Civitai. Paid memberships are built on those services, so part of the product people use is not in the published code.

• https://civitai.com/pricing recorded 2026-09-27

  Memberships at $10, $25 and $50 a month granting Buzz, "3 Private Models" and model monetization.

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/civitai/civitai/HEAD/LICENSE recorded 2026-09-27

  Apache License Version 2.0, January 2004, full text.

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/civitai/civitai/HEAD/README.md recorded 2026-09-27

  "The extra services in docker-compose.yml (signals, buzz) come from private ghcr.io images, so they only work for internal members". Orchestration (Generation, Training), Signals and Buzz "will currently not work locally".

Civitai's API exposes an all-time download counter on each model, and the most-downloaded checkpoints are in the low millions. The counters are cumulative, cover only downloads through the site, and no platform total is published, so the reading reflects a large community inside image generation rather than a measured monthly figure.

• https://civitai.com/api/v1/models?limit=3&sort=Most%20Downloaded recorded 2026-09-27

  Most downloaded: Realistic Vision V6.0 B1 "downloadCount":2330206, DreamShaper 1684175, Juggernaut XL 1650374; no total count in the metadata.

Users create accounts and upload models, each with numbered versions holding the files, and the public API lists, searches and resolves them without a key. Everything it hosts is one class of artifact, image-generation weights and adapters, with no datasets, apps or Git history, so it sits a step below Hugging Face Hub.

• https://developer.civitai.com/site/reference/ recorded 2026-09-27

  "All endpoints below live under https://civitai.com/api/v1/"; models and model versions, including "GET /model-versions/by-hash/{hash}", are "Public — no token required."

• https://developer.civitai.com/site/reference/models recorded 2026-09-27

  "A model represents a trained AI resource published on Civitai — a checkpoint, LoRA, textual inversion, VAE, ControlNet, upscaler, etc. Each model has one or more model versions containing the actual files."

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/civitai/civitai/HEAD/README.md recorded 2026-09-27

  "The platform allows users to create an account, upload their models, and browse models that have been shared by others."