# ComfyUI 70 Hacker News commenters recommended ComfyUI and 19 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Recommended for powerful, flexible control over diffusion models and node-based workflows, and free to run locally. Caveat: steep learning curve and a node graph that is hard to manage. ## Why people recommend it - Largest ecosystem of community models (5 comments): "Various subreddits and civitAI blogs describe comfyui workflows and details on how to maximize LoRA effectiveness and are probably all you need for a guided tour of that space" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45894530)) "Go look at what the ComfyUI community comes up with, those guys know more about WAN 2.2 than the people who trained it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48803261)) "There are some equivalents, but the ecosystems aren't playing in the same ballpark." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45954477)) - Full control over nodes and workflows (4 comments): "Control and consistency, as well as support for specialized workflows is more important, even if it comes at the expense of model quality." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46551297)) "very powerful and flexible, especially if you want full control over nodes and workflows" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46274446)) "The mainstream services have zero knobs to play around with, local is infinite." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45999726)) - Used by professional creators (4 comments): "Practically anybody actually creating with this class of models (diffusion based mostly) is using ComfyUI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46959411)) "It's telling that the best AI generated content is made by people using these prosumer style projects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45800413)) "I've heard some professionals have gotten good results building custom workflows in ComfyUI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46706868)) - Built-in templates ease getting started (3 comments): "It's come a long way in terms of user-friendliness particularly with all of the built-in Templates you can use." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46960999)) "works great and much faster via ComfyUI + the provided workflow file" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46177979)) "one of the easiest way to get started with local image/video models" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49775980)) ## What people warn about - Crashes and stability problems (3 comments): "every time i see it in a real application, it becomes a huge focus of issues" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48327992)) "ComfyUI generally causes an amdgpu kernel fault after about 40 steps" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46175283)) "managing the websocket stability and intermediate state for ComfyUI was a nightmare" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46771343)) - Messy node graphs hard to parse (3 comments): "Parsing ComfyUI workflows is tricky because of the spaghetti node graph." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46889196)) "I'm in favor of intelligent models like Nano Banana over ComfyUI messes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46175113)) "ComfyUI-inspired node graphs are the wrong approach for visual media." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45948285)) - Steep learning curve (2 comments): "ComfyUI is the advanced do-everything workhorse. However, it's anything but comfy if you don't already have a lot of knowledge" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48641423)) "Node-based workflows are unruly, and you have to know in advance what you need to do for anything to work." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46969650)) - Output lags behind closed models (2 comments): "what I create in ComfyUI often pales in comparison to what Nano or Sora can generate given my hardware constraints" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46729000)) "ComfyUI is an abomination that can't do half of what Nano Banana and Seedance 2.0 can do." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48561450)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Draw Things](https://hackerapproved.com/p/draw-things.md): 9 recommend - [InvokeAI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/invokeai.md): 6 recommend - [Automatic1111 Stable Diffusion WebUI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/automatic1111.md): 5 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "ComfyUI", https://hackerapproved.com/p/comfyui/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).