YuE2 vs ACE-Step
The only two open models that turn lyrics into full songs with vocals. YuE2 sounds better; ACE-Step is the one you can actually ship and actually run.
Side by side
| YuE2 | ACE-Step | |
|---|---|---|
| Audio quality | Better — competitive with Suno v5 | Good, clearly behind YuE2 |
| Licence (weights) | CC BY-NC 4.0 — non-commercial | Apache-2.0 |
| Output | 48 kHz stereo | High quality |
| VRAM | 24 GB, no quantised fallback | 8 GB with offload flags |
| OS | Linux only | Linux, Windows, macOS |
| Apple Silicon | No | Yes — ~1× real time on M2 Max |
| Editable score | Yes — ABC notation | No |
| Editing | Edit score, re-render | Retake, repaint, edit, extend |
| Covers | Zero-shot via SheetSage2 | audio-to-audio |
| Language | Python | Python |
| License | Apache-2.0 (code) · CC BY-NC 4.0 (weights) | Apache-2.0 |
| Platforms | Linux | Linux Windows macOS |
| First released | 2025 (YuE2 supersedes it) | 2025 |
| Maintained | Yes | Yes |
Where they actually differ
Licensing points one way
ACE-Step is Apache-2.0 on code and weights. YuE2’s code is Apache-2.0 but its weights are CC BY-NC 4.0 — non-commercial. Older write-ups describing YuE as the permissive open answer to Suno are describing version 1 and are out of date. For any commercial use, ACE-Step is the only option of the two.
Hardware points the same way
YuE2 documents Linux, Python 3.12 and a BF16-capable 24 GB NVIDIA GPU, with no quantised path. ACE-Step runs in 8 GB with offload flags and is the one serious song model that works properly on Apple Silicon. Between them, most people can only run one.
Quality points the other way
On the project’s own WildSongBench evaluation, YuE2 scores 6.73 (6.96 best-of-8) against ACE-Step 1.5 at 6.01, with YuE2 sitting alongside Suno v5. Treat authors’ own benchmarks carefully, but the gap is large enough to be real.
They edit very differently
YuE2 exposes the composition as ABC notation you can change before rendering — genuinely unusual. ACE-Step edits the audio result: retake with variance, repaint a time range, change lyrics while preserving melody, extend. One is composing, the other is producing.
Which should you choose?
Choose YuE2 when…
- You want the best open song quality available
- You want to edit the composition as notation
- You are doing zero-shot covers
- You have Linux and a 24 GB NVIDIA GPU
- The work is non-commercial
Choose ACE-Step when…
- You are shipping anything commercial
- You are on Apple Silicon, Windows, or 8 GB
- You want fast iteration and audio-level editing
- You want the easier setup