Ideogram's Text Is Better. Leonardo's Control Is Meaner. Pick Your Pain.

I needed a series of quote-cards with real typography, and Ideogram simply won. It rendered 'Don't sleep on the small wins' with correct apostrophes and a font I'd actually use. Leonardo's text came out as confident scribbles that read 'Don't slep on the smal wns' more often than not.

But the same client wanted the cards to share a character and palette across twenty posts. There Leonardo's preset and seed controls let me lock the look; Ideogram drifted, giving me a new art style each time unless I fought the prompt. For a coherent set, drift is the enemy.

So the pain is a trade. Ideogram's pain is inconsistency across a batch; Leonardo's pain is readable text. I now decide by the deliverable: quote cards and signage go to Ideogram, character-series and product concepts go to Leonardo. Pretending one does both just means redoing the weak half.

One more difference nobody mentions: Ideogram's edits feel like talking to a designer ('make the background darker'), Leonardo's feel like tuning a machine (strength sliders). I prefer talking. My colleague prefers tuning. The tool you keep is the one matching your patience.

Verdict: Ideogram when the words in the picture are the point, Leonardo when the picture must stay on-brand across dozens of frames. Choose by what you'll redo otherwise.