The closest alternative to Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) is Gemini 3.5 Flash — comparable intelligence (43.3 vs —); for a cheaper option, MiniMax M2.7 runs $0.250/M vs $0.300/M; for more speed, Morph V3 Large hits 2.6k t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is MiniMax M3.
Gemini 3.5 Flash is the closest alternative to Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image), with an Intelligence Index of 43.3 (Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) scores —) at $1.50 per million input tokens.
Yes — MiniMax M2.7 costs $0.250 per million input tokens versus $0.300 for Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image), while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.