Hi everyone.
I have a question because I’m totally confused.
Isn’t using Comfy free? At least that’s what I’m reading everywhere.
I installed Stability Matrix including Comfy, and later the standalone version of Comfy.
I generated two videos, a text-to-speech message, and some images.
And suddenly my credits were used up. Wait a minute: credits? Do you need them for free software?
Now I have to buy more credits to create more images and videos.
So, my question is: does using Comfy actually cost money?
Or am I just being dense?
Yes, ComfyUI is free. Now if you want the Cloud version which allows you to use their servers to create, that’s a new and different ballgame! If you don’t have the hardware necessary to do certain things, the Cloud services like ComfyUI is there for your use just like RunPod and other services which offer higher processing, VRAM and RAM to do almost anything . . . buying credits.
If you have the hardware requirements needed, you can freely download (may I suggest) the portable version from github. I have been using the tavris Comfyui-EasyInstall ( GitHub - Tavris1/ComfyUI-Easy-Install: Portable ComfyUI installer for Windows, macOS and Linux 🔹 Nvidia GPU support 🔹 Pixaroma Community Edition · GitHub ) for a couple of years now simply for the fact it’s virtually one-click and it installs a contained Python with in the Comfy folder which isolates from any Windows version you may have. You can drag and drop the entire folder onto any extra drive you want ( I use a dedicated drive apart from C:\. Also the EasyInstall also offers Addons which seamlessly installs for FlashAttention, SageAttention, Nunchaku . . . and the best is Easy-Models-Linker which points to the Models folder with its subfolders if you’re like me and store your models on another separate drive so if you have to get rid of ComfyUI or install more than one portable version, let’s say one for images, another for video and another for sound, all you have to do is link the same models back to your new installation with Easy-Models-Linker again . . . one set of models for as many versions as you want without duplicating space-hogging safetensors! Or you can do the same if all you have is your C:\ drive to work with by creating just the ComfyUI folder.
The self-contained Python (called “python_embeded”) folder keeps you using the correct Python version for your ComfyUI. It’s a well known fact that if and when you’re asked if you want to upgrade Python in Windows, you’re probably going to break a lot of workflows that insist on using a certain Python version, thus the safeguard of ComfyUI’s Portable version being still intact in its own folder.
So, if this is confusing, feel free to ask me to clarify if need be. Maybe let me know how your computer system is setup, extra drive, whatever. If you’re Linux or Mac, that’s a different ballgame. I’m Win11. That’s what I know.
Hope this opened up a door for you.
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