Getting Started with ComfyUI in 2025

Despite my initial reservations I switched to ComfyUI late 2023 and have never looked back. Thanks to the vast and rapidly growing adoption of this application there has been vast (yes vast) improvements in functionality and features in 2024.

This post is therefore helping you get over any anxiety or fear of learning ComfyUI – because its incredibly powerful and has TONs of add-on available (we will discuss these later).

You can install ComfyUI locally if you have a GPU that has 8GB (minimum recommendation) of VRAM. This is not your PC’s RAM but the memory of your GPU (Graphic Processor Unit).

Installing ComfyUI

Local Install

Method 1 – You can install ComfyUI as a prepackaged build for Windows via this Direct download link. Simply extract the zip file (using 7Zip) and you can run run_nvidia_gpu.bat file to launch ComfyUI.
Method 2 – You can install Pinokio a simple GUI application that has built in One-Click installations for many AI app. Including ComfyUI. Pinokio is available for Windows, Mac and Linux
Method 3 – Manual install from ComfyUI Github page.

RunPod Install – Cloud GPU

Alternative to running locally this requires some initial funds to be spent to explore ComfyUI space, the beauty is that you can start with as low as $0.40 per hour. Cloud GPU such as the ones provided by RunPod mean that you are running an instance of ComfyUI in the cloud and as long as your Pod is available it will run and at the end you can delete the pod, note that if you don’t delete there may be some ongoing storage charges by RunPod as you are still using disk space.

Each of these will get you started with using ComfyUI as they come pre-installed with it. However you do need intermediate skills in technology to explore this option.

My Recommendation

Local is better as there is no time limit and ease of use is greater. I started with Method 1 and then have moved over to Method 2 now, so I would recommend this if your GPU is able to support.

Running ComfyUI

Running ComfyUI is quite easy simple launch via Command Prompt/Terminal python main.py which will start your ComfyUI interface and you should get a link at the end of the script. Do Not close the Command Prompt/Terminal window where you launch the script otherwise you will accidentally end the application.

Upon successful launch you will receive a URL like http://127.0.0.1:7860

Click on the URL to open the site in your favourite/default browser.

Understanding the ComfyUI Interface

As I said in the intro thanks to many developments in 2024 the interface is even more feature rich and easy to follow. Study the below UX design as I cover the different buttons and features of a default interface.

Top Navigation bar

This top navigation bar comprises of ComfyUI menu where you can save/open workflows, edit and clear workspace (that’s the gray area in the middle where the Workflow is), there is also a help menu when you need help. Next to that just like a browser you have tabs where each workflow opened can be switched between. Towards the right of that you have Toggle Bottom Panel which shows you logs of ComfyUI as it runs your workflow, this is good to see what happening under the hood and also to see what’s gone wrong in case something does. Finally the burger icon ☰ as its often referred to as is a toggle switch which will toggle on/off ALL menues.

Left Navigation bar

This bar let’s you browse into the Queue, Node Library, Model Library, Workflows.

Queue – this shows the current task and past tasks.
Node Library – this let’s you browse the nodes that are used to build workflows. You can browse by category folders or search via the search bar.
Model Library – this let’s you browse what model Checkpoints you have as well as download new ones, including other things like LoRAs, Controlnet, Clip Vission etc
Workflows – let’s you browse your workflows folder so you can access your saved workflows as well as access some sample workflows included.

Towards the bottom end of this left navigation bar you have the light/dark working mode of your environment. The gear icon is your typical Settings menu where you can fine-tune the settings of ComfyUI. Not something you need to delve into at the starting but certainly good to know where to find it.

Bottom Floating Bar

At the bottom you have the floating bar that can be moved around and it let’s you Queue up new tasks by clicking on the Queue button. You have a number of tasks next to it indicating that it will run 1 or more times. Next to that you have the X icon which will cancel the “current” task only, but with the ▢ icon you can clear the entire queue of pending queued up tasks. A task is an execution of your workflow from start to finish.

Queue button also has other functions, where by default when its clicked it will queue the task. Other options are:

Queue (Instant) – which will queue one task after another until you stop by switching the button to Queue.
Queue (On Change) – which will queue a task when you change something in the workflow. eg. you change the prompt from purple galaxy bottle to green galaxy bottle. Or if the seed changes after generation it will queue up another task. Again to disable this generation you need to switch the button back to Queue.

Bottom Right Tools Bar

This bar give you some nice tools that let you navigate on the screen. + and – are obvious zoom in/zoom out features that will let you zoom in or out of the workflow screen. This might look unnecessary when you have the default workflow but as you will find your workflows will generally grow in size and you experiment and explore more in ComfyUI world.

⛶ icon let’s you fit view either the whole workflow if no node is selected or if a group of nodes are selected it will fit them in the view of the screen.

➤ icon let’s you select and click on the nodes to make changes to them. Clicking on this ➤ icon will turn it into👆icon which will allow you you move the workflow area around on the screen. Click back on the 👆icon to bring it back to ➤.

My recommendation here is to use the spacebar key to press and move the workflow area around, or click and drag in the workflow space.

👁 icon will toggle between showing you the links or hidding them. If you are a bit OCD you will find these links often referred to as spaghetti can get messy as you grow and build your workflow. It can be a nice releif to ones eyes not seeing the links.

ComfyUI Manager

ComfyUI Manager is one of the first additions you need after installing ComfyUI, its a must have. ComfyUI Manager let’s you browse through the published library of custom nodes (components for ComfyUI) that will add more capabilities to your workflows.

If you install (method 2) via Pinokio your ComfyUI environment then this will come installed standard, however if you have installed using (method 3 or 1) it may not be included. So you should install it following my earlier post on how to install ComfyUI Manager, I also have a short 2 minute video.

Example Workflows

ComfyUI comes with an enoromous amount of Workflow examples; a workflow is a set of ComfyUI nodes connected to accomplish a task, its like a recipe you create and can share with others.

You can search our site for various ComfyUI Workflows and also checkout the many example shared by the author of ComfyUI

The workflows are typically exported in JSON format (text based file) or PNG if an image is generated from the workflow. The PNG will have typically the workflow embedded inside it, again if you open the PNG in text editor you will see JSON format code at the start of the file.

This also makes it easy to export and share your workflows with others in the community.

Red Box Error in Workflow

Often when you download an example workflow from our site or other standard examples you may find that workflows loads but then you get a popup error stating “missing” nodes and after you acknowledge the error you get something like this.

This means that there are certain nodes that the workflow utilises which are not installed in your ComfyUI environment. So to resolve this the easiest way is to open the ComfyUI Manager. If its installed it will appear in the Top menu bar with the 🧩Manager button. Click on this which will open up a dialog where you will see a button Install Missing Custom Nodes, click on it to proceed.

It will automatically filter to Missing set of nodes, this shows that the workflow uses these below custom nodes which are not installed in your ComfyUI. Click on the items individually to Install or ✅check them all and click on the Install button at the bottom.

At the end of the installation you will be asked to Restart ComfyUI, this is absolutely necessary.

After the restart if you didn’t close your browser’s tab you should hit Refresh for it to reload the workflow. All the nodes should appear correctly now and you should be able to run the imported workflow.

Conclusion

With that all covered you are set to explore the wonderful world of ComfyUI and experiment with different workflows. We have covered the basis of installing ComfyUI, understanding it UX in details, including installing ComfyUI Manager and fixing the common error of missing nodes. Don’t forget to check out our YouTube channel where we have plenty of content on ComfyUI.

There are many articles on this site related to ComfyUI, pls check them out as well.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out us via the comments below or via our Social links above.