Midjourney vs ComfyUI
Midjourney is a hosted subscription service; ComfyUI is free, open-source software you run yourself.
Pick Midjourney if…
You want a hosted service with no setup that works from a browser or Discord, and you do not want to manage hardware.
Pick ComfyUI if…
You want to run models locally for free, build your own node-graph workflows, and have a capable GPU or are happy to pay for Comfy Cloud.
Price
- Paid
- Freemium
- Open source
Starting price
Free plan
Open source
Works on
| Feature | Subscription AI image and video generator you use on midjourney.com or in Discord. | Open-source node-based interface and engine for running generative AI models on your own machine. |
|---|---|---|
| Price |
|
|
| Starting price | Basic: $10/month, or $96/year billed annually ($8/month) | Free to run locally; optional Comfy Cloud from $20/month ($16/month billed yearly) |
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Open source | No | Yes |
| Works on | Web | Windows, macOS, Linux, API |
| Try Midjourney (opens the Midjourney website in a new tab) | Try ComfyUI (opens the ComfyUI website in a new tab) |
Midjourney is subscription-only: Basic is $10/month, Standard $30, Pro $60 and Mega $120, with 20% off for annual billing. You generate on Midjourney's servers, so there is nothing to install, and Standard and above include unlimited image generations in Relax mode. There is no free plan or free trial on the website or in Discord.
ComfyUI's code is public on GitHub under GPL-3.0, and running it locally costs nothing beyond your hardware. It uses a graph and nodes interface, offers an API and backend, and the manual install supports Nvidia, AMD, Intel and Apple Silicon, with a slower CPU-only option. The manual install needs Python 3.12 or 3.13 and PyTorch 2.7 or later, and a desktop app is the easier route on supported systems.
If you do not have the hardware, Comfy Cloud is the official paid hosted version: Standard $20/month ($16 billed yearly), Creator $35, Pro $100 and Team $700, billed around active GPU time and partner nodes, with 5 free runs for new users. That puts a hosted ComfyUI in a similar price range to Midjourney's lower tiers, though the two bill differently.
The trade-off is control against convenience. Midjourney keeps you inside its own models, Editor and Discord or web tools; ComfyUI lets you assemble your own pipelines but leaves setup and model management to you. Midjourney says you own what you create (companies above $1,000,000 USD annual revenue need Pro or Mega); for ComfyUI, the model you load sets the terms.
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Last updated 16 October 2026. How we make money