Freepik vs ComfyUI – Batch Workflows Compared

Key Takeaways

I love Comfy UI and its nodebased system and it seems companies are following that trend. Well, it's great because it's infinitely customizable and can run everything AI. So, I'm not sure it's a trend, it's just useful. In this video, we're comparing two nodebased systems, Comfy UI and Freepic. Well, I personally use both of these tools. Freepic is also supplying me with free credits and is one of the few non-comfy platforms I actually use. So, we'll compare, award points, and see if there's a clear winner. Closed source or open source. I've been using both for over two years now. Well, not sure if Freep pick is over two years. Anyway, I've been using them both personally and professionally. So on one side we got a name that really needs no introduction on this channel, the open source king, Comfy UI, and on the other side is Freepic, which a lot of people still think of as just stock assets. But they got a bunch more than that, even though at this point it's way more, especially on the AI side. So the question is, can you even compare these two? Well, a year ago, definitely not. They're doing completely different things, but Freepic now has its own node editor. And honestly, you know, some of the stuff in there is pretty cool, like the list node, which is something that we're going to check out. It's meant to help with bigger batches of tasks, and it sounds like it could change how things work in your production. Does it really? In the end, each one has some strong upsides and some very real trade-offs. Now, Freepick, as you can tell, is easier to use. I mean it is much more straightforward than comfy and collaborating with your team feels much more seamless than in comfy. You have a shared space for each workflow and can work on the same file at the same time. It's also much more friendly producing content in bulk numbers, ads, for example. You can throw one image in and in one workflow have it translated into multiple languages with changes for localized audiences. Adjust it to multiple aspect ratios. Turn each variation to videos. pretty useful if you're in marketing and it all generates pretty fast since everything is API. Now, you can of course do all of that in Comfy, but it can be slower depending on your setup, right? Prepic really shines in its ease of use and Comfy shines in how deeply customized it can be and how much control you actually end up having. And sometimes it makes sense to pay for that ease of use. So, let's go through this piece by piece. give out some points as we go. Now, let's start with ease of use. Comfy UI used to be, let's say, character building to install. A lot of people avoid it because of that. I mean, I essentially built my whole channel just getting these AI tools installed, right? So, these days though, especially with the desktop version, it's much easier than it used to be. That said, platforms like Freepick is still on a completely different level when it comes to simplicity. You don't have to handle anything in terms of installation. You simply log in and that's it. No installs, no missing nodes, no updates breaking, no random errors to troubleshoot. Everything is just there and it works well most of the time, I guess. And in practice, that matters. If I just need to get something done quickly, especially with a fairly new model, you know, I might personally jump onto free pick simply because I know I'll save time and avoid friction. I know it's going to be there. So when it comes to accessibility, I usually ask one very simple question. Could your mom use it? And by that standard, this point clearly goes to Freepic. All right. Next up, models. Now, Freepick actually comes stacked here. You got all the big names you'd expect. You know, Zagemage, Flux, Zdream, Quen, Wling, Cance, Nana, Banana Pro. You know, you can take your pick. Basically, if there's a popular model people are talking about right now, chances are it's already there. Now, to be fair, most of these and pretty much all of them can also be used in Comfy, either by running them locally on your machine or by hooking into them through API nodes. So, it's not like Comfy is missing out completely. Actually, it's probably the reverse in some cases, but both sides have a butt. On the free pig side, you currently can't use custom loras, which is definitely a limitation if you like fine-tuning things to your exact taste. And on the Confy UI side, well, you need to actually download and store these models yourself. And some of them are huge. We're talking like 30 40 GB or more per model, but yeah, I'm a small L. I could just be like 50 megs or 100 megs. But yeah, there are more options in Comfy, hands down. Now, let's talk about workflows and nodes. Now, Comfy UI is basically a sandbox at this point where you can almost do anything in it. It has a bunch of nodes already by default and tons of community ones on top. When I say tons, I mean like hundreds and thousands custom nodes that you can download and play around with and build your own infinitely limitless workflow, right? It really feels endless. Now, Freepick, on the other hand, is honestly pretty basic when it comes to to that, at least for now. You got the main stuff, problems, image, video generation and AI assistant upscaling, uh, you know, some some camera angle stuff. It's clean. You you got most of the stuff there. It's easy, but it's also clearly limited. There is one node though, the list node, and it's way more useful than you would think as it can automate your whole pipeline. Now, what does that mean? So, here's a super simple example. I got this AI assistant note here and I just asked it to come up with a bunch of YouTube thumbnail ideas plus a prompt for each one. Now, this list note just holds all of those prompts. Each one as its own item. Now, once I plug this into the image generator, it automatically knows what to do, right? It just spits out a batch of images, one for each prompt. That's basically it. Now, every time I run this, I get a fresh set of thumbnail ideas. And I mean, they're all not perfect, but honestly, a few of these, you know, I could probably use for this video, maybe with some tweaks. So, you know, the functionality is there. Now, without the list note all, I'd have to do this over and over again. Write a prompt, run it, repeat. This way, I can just let it do its thing while I focus on other stuff. Now, you can build complex workflows and and automation in Confy, too. You totally can. and it probably can do even more complex stuff in conf. But you still got to build it and set it up, which is probably the complicated part. Now, this one's pretty simple, but you can definitely build much bigger setups for more complex stuff, even in uh Freepick 2, not just as complex. Same principle again, just different camera angles. Now, if you're into uh film making, this is a huge timesaver for shots. And this one, it's just cycling through colors on my cap automatically. E-commerce people are probably loving stuff like this. Now, you can do the same thing for translations, aspect ratios, and a bunch of other stuff. Now, with the list node, I can just throw everything into one place, different prompts here, consistent image inputs there, run a single workflow, and it batch generates everything. Now, that's genuinely very handy if you're doing bulk work like that. So, who gets the point here? I mean, look, this list node is really cool and can be a big timesaver. I know some people already want to use it, you know, on on projects, but to be honest, when it comes to workflows and custom nodes, there is nothing like Comfy at this point with this never-ending library. Yeah, I know things break sometimes, but that flexibility is exactly why people use it and why it gets the point in this round. And to be fair, Free Pick is not trying to compete with that. They're just trying to make a simpler version of it. Now, pricing is one of those where at first you kind of want to go, well, obviously Confy wins. It's free. There are nuances to this story, right? Because if you're actually running the good stuff, especially video models, chances are you've spent a lot on hardware. I know I have. And with the prices today, well, don't get me started. If you haven't, well, then you're probably stuck with smaller models and lighter workflows and just don't play uh in the same league as some of the big boys. Now, free pick obviously is the opposite. You pay a subscription, but even if you look at something like their premium plus plan over 4 years, you're still nowhere near what a proper high-end PC costs and you don't have to think about VRAM upgrades, drivers, or you know, whether GPU is about to melt, which well happened to a AI generating friend of mine. Anyway, that said, there's still something nice about owning your setup. You buy the machine, it's yours, and you can push it as hard as you want. no limits, no subscriptions. So yeah, even though free pick could sometimes end up being cheaper depending on what you're doing, I'm giving this one to Comi. Ownership just hits different. Now, there's one last category I want to touch on and that's collaboration. A lot of the time it's not just me working on something. There's a team involved and in plain comfy UI collaborating can get kind of messy. Now you there are workarounds to that, but essentially you're passing workflows back and forth. Everyone needs to be on the same confer version if you're using it locally. Well, you don't need to be on the same config version, but you need to be able to run the same workflow. So, sometimes you need to be, you know, on a similar version so that you can support some of the latest nodes and blah blah. You get the point. On paper, it sounds simple, but in reality, it often isn't. Now, FreePig doesn't really have that problem. You can just share a space, invite other people in and work on the same thing together. No setup, no syncing. It just works. And that's actually pretty nice. And to be fair, you're just not paying for the node-based editor there. You're getting other stuff on top. Other AI tools, mockup generators, audio generators, voice cloning, stock assets, the, you know, the list kind of keeps going. You get a bunch of credits to do all the closed source API stuff. So yeah, I mean, this I'm a little on the fence here, but I I could give this I I'll be a good sport. I'll give this to Freepick. Now, if you're deep into post-p production or building custom AI workflows, there might not be an alternative to the config ecosystem, either using it locally, you know, or in the cloud with platforms like Flow or Confy Cloud. If you're looking for ease of use and you don't need all of that advanced stuff, you know, there are options. The platforms are solving different problems. Comfy UI gives me control, flexibility, and ownership. Freepick gives me speed, accessibility, and a really smooth way to get things done while being a little limiting. Now, would I use Freepic like in postp production for a you know Hollywood film? Probably not today. Would I use Comfy? Totally. And I have different tools, different moods. And if you're curious about free spaces, well, I dropped the link below if you want to check it out. And I'll see you in the next one. Bye-bye.