ComfyUI vs Stable Diffusion WebUI (A1111, Forge) in 2026

Checked on October 1, 2026 against each project's GitHub repository, release notes and official documentation. This update replaces the February 2026 version, whose speed benchmarks, community sizes and cost-per-image figures we could not source and have removed.

The short answer

• ComfyUI does not replace Stable Diffusion; it runs it. Stable Diffusion (SD 1.5, SDXL, SD 3.5) is a model family from Stability AI. ComfyUI and AUTOMATIC1111's Stable Diffusion WebUI are interfaces, so the real comparison is between the interfaces.
• Choose ComfyUI for current image and video models, repeatable workflows, batch runs or an API.
• Choose a form-based interface if you prefer tabs and sliders to a node graph. In 2026 that means a maintained fork, such as Forge Neo or SD.Next, or SwarmUI on top of ComfyUI, rather than the original AUTOMATIC1111.

ComfyUI vs AUTOMATIC1111 vs Forge at a glance

Sources: ComfyUI, AUTOMATIC1111 and its changelog, Forge and Forge Neo.

Which interfaces are still maintained (October 2026)

• ComfyUI: maintained by Comfy Org, with frequent releases; v0.38.0 shipped on September 29, 2026. Its README lists native support for current image, editing, video, audio and 3D models.
• AUTOMATIC1111 Stable Diffusion WebUI: the main branch still points at the July 27, 2024 code of v1.10.1. The dev branch has only had install fixes. Forge's own README describes the original WebUI as "almost static now."
• Forge (lllyasviel): no commits since June 26, 2025 and no end-of-life notice. Its status table still shows Flux ControlNets as "Not implemented yet."
• reForge: its README now opens with "Suggested repos instead of reForge for stability" and points to Forge Neo.
• Forge Neo: the neo branch of Haoming02's Forge Classic, which calls itself a continuation of the latest Forge. It adds Flux.2 Klein, Z-Image, Qwen-Image and Wan 2.2 and drops SD2 and SD3.
• SD.Next: actively developed (changelog update on September 21, 2026), Apache-2.0, with the broadest backend list of the group: CUDA, ROCm, ZLUDA, Intel, OpenVINO, DirectML and Apple MPS. Its model list includes Flux.2, Chroma, Qwen-Image, Z-Image and Wan.
• InvokeAI: the Invoke team joined Adobe's Firefly Foundry team in October 2025. The open-source app continues as a community edition; its v6.10.0 notes call it "the first InvokeAI Community Edition release since the closure of the commercial venture," and v6.14.2 followed on September 27, 2026.
• Fooocus: "Limited Long-Term Support (LTS) with Bug Fixes Only," built on SDXL. Its README points Flux users to Forge, ComfyUI or SwarmUI.
• SwarmUI: active, with commits on September 30, 2026. Its docs say "Swarm is a wrapper around Comfy - it contains Comfy, in full, node graph and all, and then adds more."
• Krita AI Diffusion: a painting plugin for Krita whose README says it "uses ComfyUI as backend"; v1.53.0 was released on August 22, 2026.

Node graph vs form: how they feel to use

In ComfyUI every step is a node you can see and rewire: Load Checkpoint, two CLIP Text Encode nodes for the prompts, Empty Latent Image for size, KSampler, VAE Decode and Save Image. That takes longer to learn, but the graph is the recipe. Every generated PNG carries its full workflow, so dragging it back onto the canvas rebuilds the exact graph, seeds included. The README also notes that ComfyUI only re-executes the parts of a graph that changed since the last run, which saves time when you tweak one step of a long pipeline.

AUTOMATIC1111 and its forks put everything on tabs: txt2img, img2img, Extras for upscaling, and a settings page. For quick one-off images that is faster to pick up. Its X/Y/Z plot script, which renders a grid of images across different parameter values, is still one of the easiest ways to compare settings.

If you want both, SwarmUI gives you a form-style Generate tab with the full ComfyUI graph underneath.

Speed and VRAM: what can honestly be said

Earlier versions of this article quoted speed and VRAM benchmarks that we cannot trace to a published test, so they are gone. Here is what the projects themselves document:

• ComfyUI lists "asynchronous queueing, partial graph re-execution, smart VRAM and RAM management, model offloading, and support for quantized models," and its README says it can run "even the biggest open source models on as low as 4GB vram + 8GB ram" by streaming weights. Current builds turn on dynamic VRAM management by default on NVIDIA GPUs.
• AUTOMATIC1111 offers --medvram, --medvram-sdxl and --lowvram, which trade speed for lower VRAM use, plus --xformers for faster attention.
• Forge describes itself as built to "optimize resource management, speed up inference" compared with the WebUI it is based on.

To compare them on your own machine, use the same model file, resolution, steps, sampler and seed, and time the second run, because the first includes loading the model.

Automation and APIs

ComfyUI is built around a queue. Any workflow can be exported with File, then Export Workflow (API), and posted to the /prompt endpoint, with progress reported over a WebSocket (server routes docs). That is why tools like SwarmUI and Krita AI Diffusion use it as their engine.

AUTOMATIC1111 exposes an API when started with --api, including /sdapi/v1/txt2img, and serves interactive docs at /docs. Its API wiki page notes it has not been maintained since September 2023.

Switching from AUTOMATIC1111 to ComfyUI

1. Keep your models where they are. Rename extra_model_paths.yaml.example to extra_model_paths.yaml, uncomment the a1111 block, set base_path to your stable-diffusion-webui folder and restart. Our ComfyUI installation guide covers the rest of the setup.
2. Map the controls. The checkpoint dropdown becomes Load Checkpoint, the prompt boxes become two CLIP Text Encode nodes, width, height and batch size live in Empty Latent Image, and steps, CFG, sampler and seed live in KSampler.
3. Reuse your prompt syntax. Weighting such as (good code:1.2) works, with a default emphasis of 1.1 for plain brackets. {day|night} picks a random option each run, and embeddings are written as embedding:filename.
4. Do not expect identical images from the same seed. ComfyUI generates the starting noise on the CPU, while AUTOMATIC1111 uses the GPU by default.
5. Replace extensions with custom nodes. Install them through ComfyUI-Manager; our ComfyUI-Manager guide explains how to enable it and read its startup log.

Which should you choose?

• You are starting today: ComfyUI through Comfy Desktop, which bundles Python and ComfyUI-Manager.
• You want current models such as Flux.2, Qwen-Image or Wan 2.2: ComfyUI, or SD.Next or Forge Neo if you prefer a form. See our best ComfyUI models guide for licenses and VRAM needs.
• You like the AUTOMATIC1111 layout: Forge Neo, or SwarmUI for a simpler interface on top of ComfyUI.
• You have a working AUTOMATIC1111 setup for SD 1.5 or SDXL: it will keep working, but do not expect new model support or fixes on its main branch.
• You need batch runs or an API for an app or automation: ComfyUI.
• You paint or edit in Krita: Krita AI Diffusion, which runs ComfyUI for you.

New to the node graph? Start with what is ComfyUI, then build a character pipeline with our LoRA training guide.

ComfyUI vs Stable Diffusion FAQ