ByteDance

ByteDance is a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Beijing's Haidian district, with an associated variable-interest entity incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Best known as a consumer internet operator at enormous scale, it has also become a significant generative media research house, developing its own families of image and video foundation models rather than licensing them from third parties.

The catalog here runs 24 models and is heavily weighted toward motion: 18 video endpoints alongside three image generators and three inpainting variants. Seedream covers stills and editing, from Seedream V4.5 (2025) through Seedream V5 Lite and the flagship Seedream V5 Pro (2026). Seedance handles video, spanning Seedance 1.5 Pro, the Seedance 2.0 line — including Fast, Mini, Enhanced and reference-to-video R2V variants — and the newest Seedance 2.5, added in 2026.

The tiering is the useful part. Mini and Fast builds target quick iteration and cheaper throughput, while Pro and Enhanced tiers aim at final-quality output. Reference-to-video modes add subject and style conditioning, making the lineup practical for creators who need consistency across shots rather than one-off clips.