We study quantitative relationships between the triangle removal lemma and several of its variants. One such variant, which we call the triangle-free lemma, states that for each $\epsilon>0$ there exists M such that every triangle-free graph G has an $\epsilon$ -approximate homomorphism to a triangle-free graph F on at most M vertices (here an $\epsilon$ -approximate homomorphism is a map $V(G) \to V(F)$ where all but at most $\epsilon \left\lvert{V(G)}\right\rvert^2$ edges of G are mapped to edges of F). One consequence of our results is that the least possible M in the triangle-free lemma grows faster than exponential in any polynomial in $\epsilon^{-1}$ . We also prove more general results for arbitrary graphs, as well as arithmetic analogues over finite fields, where the bounds are close to optimal.

We discuss the close relationship between structural theorems in (generalized) stability theory, and graph regularity theorems.