ComfyUI

ComfyUI replaced the classic Web UIs for most serious local image work. Everything is a node: model loading, CLIP encoding, sampling, VAE decode, LoRA injection, ControlNet — you build the exact pipeline you want, then share it as a single JSON.

Strengths: unmatched flexibility and the fastest-moving community of workflows in the space. If a technique exists (ip-adapter, reference-only, video), a ComfyUI workflow for it exists within days.

Limitations: the node graph is intimidating at first, and setup is manual (Python, PyTorch, model files).

Best for: anyone doing local image generation past the hobby stage. Start with an SDXL workflow, then explore Flux.