ComfyUI desktop is the Exe version officially released by ComfyUI Team for the basic PC users who do not want get around on those technical details while installation. This is just like the simple software application like you use into your Windows/Mac PCs and Laptops. The UI has been built on ElectronJs that is based on Chromium browser.
You can follow our comparison tutorial on ComfyUI Desktop Vs ComfyUI Portable version, if you do not know what's good for you.
Step By Step Clean Install/Migration
This procedure will help you do the clean ComfyUI installation or the Migration from ComfyUI portable to desktop variant.
1. Just download the ComfyUI local version for Windows or MAC OS from official platform provided below :
(a) ComfyUI Exe (Windows Users) - Requires NVIDIA GPU cards, 3000/4000/5000 series work great.
(b) ComfyUI Exe (MAC Users) - Requires Mac Chips (M2, M3, M4... etc) but struggle to handle the diffusion model inference.
2. After downloading, execute the ComfyUI (exe) file to start the installation process.
3. At the starting, you will see a get starting dashboard. Select Get Started button to proceed.
4. Next, you will be prompted with installation folder location for ComfyUI files for clean install. Here, you have two options to choose from:
(a) Default Install - Choose this option if you are new user. Leave it as default (recommended) or you can change the folder location if you know what you are doing. Then click Next button to move to next section.
(b) Migration - Other Option is the Migration. Choose this option, if you already installed ComfyUI manually or Portable version. Then, locate your ComfyUI root folder where you have installed it by clicking on folder option.
For instance in our case we have portable version already inside C:/ drive, so we located C:/ComfUI_windows_portable/ComfyUI folder. Yours will be different. At last click Next button. This will adjust all your installed ComfyUI files and folder with the new one.
5. Do the desktop settings. Check these options if you want to do these :
(a) Automatic Updates - It will automatically fetch the necessary updates from the ComfyUI servers. You will be prompted into the Manager if its available.
(b) Crash Reports - This is to support ComfyUI team for sending Crash reports anonymously that will only going to help in ComfyUI improvements.
6. Finally Click Install to initiate the process. This will open a command prompt that's going to install the necessary python dependencies, setup the virtual environment, NVIDIA's GPU dependencies and update to the latest version.
7. After complete installation you get ComfyUI dashboard opened. Now, you do not need to install Manager manually as it already bundles ComfyUI Manager. If you do not know how to work with
ComfyUI, then just follow our detailed ComfyUI Tutorial where we have breakdown all the features at one place.
8. Now, you can setup models. There are multiple Stable Diffusion Models you can try, we have listed below:
- Install Flux (Dev/Schnell/Pro) (Text to Image model)
- Install HiDream (Text to Image model)
- Install Qwen Image (Text to Image model)
- Install Wan2.1 (Text/Image to Video model)
- Install Wan 2.2 (Text/Image to Video Improved variant of Wan2.1)
- Install Stable Diffusion 3.5 (Text-to-Image model)
- Install Frame Pack (Text/Image-to-Video model)
- Install Stable Video Diffusion (Image-to-Video model)
- Installing AnimateDiff with SDXL (Image-to-Animation model)
- Installing AnimateDiff with SD1.5 (Image-to-Animation model)
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