Who makes Seedance? ByteDance Seed, the versions and where to use it
Seedance is made by ByteDance Seed, ByteDance's AI research team. Who owns it, how Seed and Seedance differ, the versions, where to use it and the API.
Read as MarkdownSeedance is made by ByteDance Seed, the AI research team of ByteDance, and ByteDance owns it. The team announced the first version in June 2025, and the latest, Seedance 2.5, on July 31, 2026. Seedance is ByteDance's video generation model family; "Seed" is the name of the team and of its wider model family, which also includes the Seedream image models. Seedance is not open source: you use it in ByteDance's own apps or through an API.
Who owns Seedance?
ByteDance. The models come from its ByteDance Seed team, and the ByteDance Seed team says of itself: "The ByteDance Seed team was established in 2023, dedicated to discovering new approaches to general intelligence, pushing the boundaries of AI." It runs labs "in China, Singapore, the United States, and other locations."
The first announcement is explicit: "The ByteDance Seed team has officially released Seedance 1.0, its foundation model for video generation." Every Seedance technical report lists ByteDance Seed as the authoring organization, and ByteDance's BytePlus cloud credits the models to ByteDance.
What is the difference between Seed and Seedance?
Seed is the team and the name prefix of its models. Seedance is one model series from that team: the one that makes video. The same family includes:
| Model family | What it does |
|---|---|
| Seedance | Video generation, with sound from Seedance 1.5 pro onward |
| Seedream | Image generation |
| SeedEdit | Image editing |
| Seed-Music, Seed Audio | Music and audio generation |
| Seed-TTS | Speech generation |
| Seed2.0, Seed2.1 | Large language models |
| Seed3D | 3D generation |
So "Seed" is not a separate product you can use; it is the name of the ByteDance team and brand the models share.
What are the Seedance versions and release dates?
| Version | Released | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Seedance 1.0 | June 11, 2025 | First version; technical report on arXiv |
| Seedance 1.5 pro | December 16, 2025 | Added video and audio generated together |
| Seedance 2.0 | February 12, 2026 | "Unified multimodal audio-video generation" |
| Seedance 2.0 Fast | Described in the 2.0 technical report | "An accelerated variant of Seedance 2.0 designed to boost generation speed" |
| Seedance 2.0 Mini | Listed in 2026 | Appears in ByteDance's model lists; no launch post found |
| Seedance 2.5 | July 31, 2026 | "The new-generation video creation model" |
The dates come from ByteDance Seed's launch posts. Model IDs on ByteDance's cloud platforms carry their own date codes, which mark when a model was added there, not when it was announced.
Is Seedance open source?
No. We found no open weights for any Seedance version on ByteDance's pages. Its own Seedance 1.5 pro technical report groups Seedance with "proprietary commercial systems, such as Veo, Sora, Kling series", as opposed to "open-source models like Wan and Hunyuan Video 1.5". You cannot download Seedance and run it locally.
Where can I use Seedance?
In ByteDance's own apps, or through an API.
Apps. ByteDance Seed's Seedance 2.5 launch post says it "is rolling out on Jimeng AI, Doubao Pro, and other platforms". Outside China, ByteDance brings Seedance to Dreamina and CapCut; CapCut's newsroom announced "Dreamina Seedance 2.0 in our editing platform CapCut" on April 10, 2026. The name "Dreamina Seedance" is how the model is branded there; ByteDance does not explain the naming further.
APIs. ByteDance sells Seedance through two cloud platforms:
- BytePlus ModelArk, its international cloud, where model IDs start with
dreamina-seedance-. - Volcano Engine Ark, its cloud in China, where model IDs start with
doubao-seedance-.
On SeedRouter. You can call Seedance 2.5, Seedance 2.0, Seedance 2.0 Fast and Seedance 2.0 Mini with a SeedRouter key, using ByteDance's official ModelArk request body. The Seedance API guide walks through the first request, and the Seedance 2.5 vs 2.0 guide helps you pick a model. Prices are per second of video, shown live on each model page, and a task that fails is not charged.
Is there a Seedance technical report?
Yes, for three versions:
| Version | Report |
|---|---|
| Seedance 1.0 | Seedance 1.0: Exploring the Boundaries of Video Generation Models |
| Seedance 1.5 pro | Seedance 1.5 pro: A Native Audio-Visual Joint Generation Foundation Model |
| Seedance 2.0 | Seedance 2.0: Advancing Video Generation for World Complexity |
We found no technical report for Seedance 2.5.
Frequently asked questions
Is Seedance Chinese?
Seedance is made by ByteDance Seed, whose labs are "in China, Singapore, the United States, and other locations". Seedance 2.0 launched in China first: its technical report says it was "officially released in China in early February 2026".
Is Seedance the same as Dreamina?
No. Dreamina is ByteDance's creative app; Seedance is the video model it uses. "Dreamina Seedance 2.0" is the name the model carries in Dreamina and CapCut.
Is Seedance free?
Not through an API. Is Seedance free? covers the free options in ByteDance's apps and what the API costs.
What is the newest Seedance model?
Seedance 2.5, announced on July 31, 2026. Seedance 2.5 vs 2.0 lists what changed.
