Runway, Minimax (also known as Hailuo AI), and Pollo AI – are three of the best-known and most-used AI video generators. They’re all useful for making AI videos in a range of genres and styles to suit your exact desires and creative expressions.
But they also differ in several key areas, like value for money, ease of use, and the range of features each one has to offer. With that in mind, our Runway vs. Minimax vs. Pollo AI guide is going to take a closer look at all three tools to discern which one is best.
Keep reading to see which tool makes the best AI videos, which is the best value for money, and which one you should use.
The TLDR Version
You might not have time to read through a full guide of Runway vs. Minimax vs. Pollo AI. If so, let’s cut right to the chase and give you our verdict of all three tools:
Out of the trio, we think Pollo AI is the best. It’s the sharpest, most impressive, most powerful, and best value of the bunch. The AI video generator understands prompts better than the rest, produces the most detailed and realistic videos, and it’s got tons of features to play around with, like templates and AI video enhancement tools.
Runway is also a great AI video generator in a lot of ways, especially for character videos, though can be a bit confusing and pricey to work with. Minimax, meanwhile, is quite a beginner-friendly tool but doesn’t give you a lot of customization options.
| Product | Pros | Cons |
| Runway |
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| Minimax (Hailuo AI) |
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| Pollo AI |
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Quality Comparison – Putting Runway, Minimax, and Pollo AI to the Test
Runway
Most of the time, Runway produces good quality videos. A lot of people appreciate the level of detail in the videos they get from this tool, and it’s really good with humans and characters in general in terms of facial detail and expressions. However, it does sometimes struggle with complicated prompts and has some issues conveying accurate, realistic movement.
Hailuo AI (Minimax)
Video quality is fair for the most part with Minimax. If you provide a good enough prompt and keep it fairly simple, you can get some great quality videos with this tool. It adds lots of detail and realism into its backgrounds and landscapes, and it mostly portrays human characters well, but can sometimes produce videos with minor obscurities or unnatural elements.
Pollo AI
Of all three of these tools, Pollo AI makes the very best videos. No matter what kind of prompt you put in, this intelligent AI video generator always seems to understand the type of video you want to make, and it delivers its output quickly and flawlessly. It’s got a great ability to capture motion and physics in a realistic way, and its videos are almost cinematic in quality.
It’s worth noting, too, that Pollo AI gives you access to not just its own AI video generation models, but a bunch more! You can use Pollo AI to try lots of different AI video models, from Kling AI to Runway , Luma AI, Hailuo AI, and Vidu AI.
Feature Comparison – What Can You Do with Runway vs. Minimax vs. Pollo AI?
In this section, we’ll test out the various features and functions of Runway, Minimax, and Pollo AI so you can get a better idea of what all three tools of capable of, what they do well, and where they possibly struggle.
Text to Video
Text to video is quite simply when you use text prompts to make videos. It’s the most basic and fundamental form of AI video generation, so it’s something that all good AI video generators need to get right.
Fortunately, Pollo AI gets it very right. Its text to video tech is some of the best in the business, with amazing prompt adherence and fabulous output quality. You can enter a simple prompt or a really complicated one with lots of different details and elements, and Pollo AI will almost always follow it really well and produce exactly the kind of video you want.
How about Runway? Well, it also does text to video generation pretty well. It has a strong level of prompt adherence, so it can understand most prompts pretty efficiently. This is especially true if you use the more recent and powerful Runway models, like Gen-3 Alpha. However, it sometimes has a problem if the prompt is either vague or really detailed and complex.
Lastly, we have Minimax. Like the others, this one does a pretty good job with text to video. It can handle short or longer prompts, but it works best if you give it lots of detail and tell it exactly what you want to see. If your prompt is too basic or vague, you might get a very generic video or one that isn’t at all related to what you were hoping to generate.
Image to Video
Image-to-video is about using images as baselines or reference points for making AI videos, and it’s something that all three of these generators can handle.
Again, Pollo AI leads the pack here. It works wonders with image to video generation. You can upload pictures of anything, from landscapes and nature shots to pictures of yourself, family, or famous historical figures, and use them to make detailed, realistic videos.
Next, let’s talk about Runway. This is also strong in the image to video department. You can drag and drop your images into the tool and then use prompts and other controls to create your videos. Runway's Motion Brush tool lets you add precise motion to still images and you can choose from various preset styles to make cinematic, animated, or other sorts of videos.
Image to video generation is available in Minimax, as well. However, it's not quite as extensive or flexible as it is in the other tools. You can simply upload your image, add a text prompt to explain how the end video should look, and choose between a couple of different models. You don't get control over things like motion, camera angles, etc. apart from in your prompt.
Video to Video
The final form of AI video generation is video to video, and that’s when you use a video, instead of a mere still image or text prompt, as the base to make a new AI video. You can use this to transform videos from one type to another, for example.
Pollo AI offers extensive video to video generation with AI. You can upload a video to this tool and then choose from various styles, like Modern Anime, Cute Anime, Pixel Art, Pencil Drawing, and Stylized 3D to transform the video in exciting ways. The results are usually very impressive and detailed.
Pollo AI also offers many video enhancements in its AI tools section. There's the AI video enhancer, for example, which can improve the quality and clarity of your videos, and the AI video extender, which you can use to generate extra video content to add on to the end or fit in the middle of an existing clip.
Runway also has some video to video functionality, including with its Gen-3 Alpha model. With this, you can upload a video and then ask the AI to transform it in various ways, such as making it more realistic or turning a realistic video into one that is more cartoonish and animated instead.
Hailuo AI (Minimax), however, doesn’t have any video to video functionality.
Consistent Characters and Subjects
The problem with a lot of AI video generators is that they make it very hard to preserve the same characters and scenes from one video to the next. Even if you use similar prompts, you can get totally different outputs each time. But some tools, like Pollo AI, aim to address that with consistent character video.
The consistent character video function of Pollo AI lets you upload images of subjects you want to see consistently in your AI videos. You could upload a picture of yourself or a famous figure, or even just an object or landmark, for example. Then, you can make multiple videos that all feature the same character or subject.
Hailuo AI has something like this, also, with its Subject Reference feature. This lets you create reference characters by uploading pictures of them and describing them. Then, you can call these characters from your reference library whenever you want to include them in a new AI video, which is helpful for making sequences or narrative series of clips.
Runway isn't quite as effective in this, but it does have its Act One feature. This lets you create custom character models which can be either animated or realistic, with very fluid and lifelike expressions and mouth movements as they speak. You can then use your Act One creations in other AI videos.
Templates and Bonus Features
Lastly, you might want to know what sorts of bonus features or templates are included with each of these three tools.
Pollo AI is the most feature-rich of the three. It gives you so many tools to enhance your AI video generating experiences. It has lots of templates, for example, that are all set up for you to make specific kinds of AI videos like kiss clips, AI Joker transform videos, and more.
Pollo AI also offers advanced camera controls, loads of customization options when you make any new video, and access to multiple AI video generation models, all from the same platform.
Runway also has a good range of features, though not as many as Pollo AI. It has the Act One feature, for example, which you can use to make accurate, lifelike AI video characters. There’s also the Lip Sync feature for syncing speech audio with character movements, and the Motion Brush to breathe life into still pictures.
As for Hailuo AI, it doesn't have a lot of extra features. The main one it offers is the aforementioned Subject Reference feature, which you can use to create consistent characters and subjects in your videos. But it doesn’t offer any templates or bonus tools.
Which AI Video Generator Offers the Best Value?
Now let’s review the pricing for all three of these tools.
Pollo AI has a free plan, plus premium plans you can pay for monthly or annually, and prices start as low as $10 per month.
Runway has a free plan too, with premium plans starting at $12 a month.
Lastly, Hailuo AI has two premium plans, one at $9.99 a month and the other at $94.99, with a pay-as-you-go option if you just want to buy credits as and when you need them. There’s also a free plan for new users.
Out of the three, Pollo AI gives you the best value, since it has the most features and best quality output at the lowest overall price.
Our Verdict
Overall, having compared Runway vs. Minimax vs. Pollo AI, we can come to some clear conclusions about these tools.
Firstly, Pollo AI is the best and most recommendable option. It’s a true all-in-one AI video generator that provides access to multiple models for your usage. It’s also got the strongest tech and by far the biggest range of features, so it’s great for almost any kind of user, from casual users just playing around to professional content creators and brands.
Runway is another good tool in a lot of ways, with high quality output, but some confusing elements. As for Minimax, it’s fine for beginners but just doesn’t offer enough to compete with the more comprehensive generators, like Pollo AI.
With that in mind, if you’re looking to try the best AI video generator, choose Pollo AI today.