ComfyUI vs Promptchan: Local Control or Easy Web App?

The short version

These two sit at opposite ends of NSFW image generation. ComfyUI is a free, open-source app you run on your own computer, where you wire nodes together and load any model you like. Promptchan is a browser app with presets, a free plan and simple text edits. ComfyUI is the better pick for most people who are willing to learn: it costs nothing to run locally, it has every editing tool you could want, and your files stay on your machine. Pick Promptchan if you have no capable GPU, no patience for setup, or you just want an image tonight.

Price

The ComfyUI local app is free under GPL-3.0. You pay for your own hardware and electricity, nothing more. If you do not have a strong GPU, Comfy Cloud Standard costs $20 a month, or $16 billed yearly. Cloud bills active GPU seconds in credits, new users get 5 free cloud runs, and unused credits do not roll over. Comfy does not publish a price per image on Cloud.

Promptchan starts free, with Gems handed out every day. For $14.99 a month, Plus gives you 100 Gems. Premium raises that to 400 Gems for $23.99, and Pro gives 800 Gems and unlimited casual generations for $33.99. It does not publish how many Gems an image costs, so you only learn the real price after you spend.

If you own the hardware, ComfyUI wins on price by a wide margin. If you do not, Promptchan’s free plan is the cheaper way to start.

Features

ComfyUI is not tied to one model. Model families include SD 1.5, SDXL, SD3.5, Flux, Qwen Image and Wan video, and you can load any checkpoint or LoRA you download. Editing is built in too, from inpainting, outpainting and masks to ControlNets, upscaling and model merging, and you can chain image-edit models like Flux Kontext. There is no button to save a character. You keep a face the same with LoRAs, reference conditioning or image-edit models, which takes setup but can be reused once it works.

Promptchan covers realistic, anime, fantasy and illustration styles with models based on refined open-source models. Its main tool is Tweak: you type what to change, such as outfit, background, pose or lighting, and it keeps the same character. Pro adds 4K images, the AI character feature and video. Inpainting and upscaling are not listed. There is also an API.

ComfyUI wins on range and control. Promptchan wins on speed to a first result.

Privacy and trust

A local ComfyUI run never leaves your computer. If you use Comfy Cloud, the terms say you keep rights to your inputs and that Comfy will not train models on your inputs or outputs. The Cloud terms ban CSAM, non-consensual intimate imagery and impersonation, and they say nothing about adult content in general. They also give no minimum age and no age check.

Promptchan says you own your outputs. Private mode leaves Promptchan with no rights to your images, while public mode hands it a broad license. Data is kept as long as necessary, and you can ask for erasure. The privacy policy does not say if prompts train models. Age is an 18+ self-declaration with no check described. The content policy allows adult content and bans CSAM, minor-themed content, deepfakes, bestiality and graphic gore. Trustpilot reviews are mostly positive, with praise for ease of use and complaints about bugs and complex prompts.

ComfyUI is the clear winner here, as long as you run it locally.

Who should pick which

Pick ComfyUI if:

• You own a capable GPU and want to pay nothing to generate.
• You want any open model or LoRA, not a fixed list.
• You need inpainting, masks or upscaling to fix details.
• You want your images to stay on your own machine.

Pick Promptchan if:

• You want to start in a browser with no install.
• You want to change outfits and poses by typing, not by building a workflow.
• You do not have a GPU and do not want to rent one.

If you are unsure, try both for free. Use the Promptchan free plan to see the styles, and use the 5 free Comfy Cloud runs or the Desktop app to see if the node graph suits you. For most people who stick with it, ComfyUI is where they end up.