LocalLabCompare › Upscayl
LocalLab AI and Upscayl
Both make pictures bigger and sharper with AI on your computer. Upscayl is a free, open-source image upscaler for Mac, Windows and Linux; LocalLab AI's Upscale does photos and videos, as one of nine AI tools.
Choose Upscayl if
- You only need to upscale images, and want an app made for that alone.
- You want to go bigger than 4× — Upscayl goes up to 16× — or choose between several models.
- You want open-source software, or the same app on Windows and Linux.
Choose LocalLab AI if
- You want videos upscaled too, with their sound kept.
- You want photo upscaling planned for your Mac first — the memory and time it needs — on any Apple silicon Mac, from 8 GB.
- You also want chat, pictures, video, music, speech, transcription, stem separation and text from scans — free, in one sandboxed App Store app.
Side by side
| LocalLab AI | Upscayl | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Nine AI tools in one app, Upscale among them | An image upscaler |
| Price | Free on the Mac App Store | Free; Upscayl Cloud is a separate online service |
| Open source | No | Yes, AGPL-3.0 |
| Platforms | Mac with Apple silicon, macOS 14 or later | macOS 12 or later, Windows and Linux; needs a Vulkan-compatible GPU |
| What it upscales | Photos (VOSR2) and videos with their sound (SeedVR2) | Images |
| How far | Up to 4×, or to HD, 2K or 4K | Up to 16× |
| Also | Chat, images, video, music, text to speech, transcription, stems, text from scans | Batch upscaling, face enhancement |
How they differ
Photos
LocalLab AI upscales photos with VOSR2, a one-step super-resolution model that restores the detail an enlargement blurs, a tile at a time so it fits on any Apple silicon Mac — a 1024 × 1024 photo becomes 2048 × 2048 in about 25 seconds on an M2 Max. Upscayl offers several models and larger scales, and upscales a batch of images in one go.
Videos
LocalLab AI also upscales video with SeedVR2, frame by frame, keeping the soundtrack; a long upscale picks up where it stopped if you quit. Upscayl's site describes image upscaling only.
Questions
Which gives better results?
It depends on the picture. The two use different models, so try the same image in each: both are free.
Does either send my pictures to a server?
LocalLab AI upscales only on your Mac. Upscayl's app upscales on your computer too; Upscayl Cloud is its separate online service.
Sources
What this page says about Upscayl comes from its own site, checked October 2026. Apps change quickly — check them for the latest.