ComfyUI/docs/installing.md

Getting Started

Installing

These instructions will install an interactive ComfyUI using the command line.

Windows

When using Windows, open the Windows Powershell app. Then observe you are at a command line, and it is printing "where" you are in your file system: your user directory (e.g., C:\Users\doctorpangloss). This is where a bunch of files will go. If you want files to go somewhere else, consult a chat bot for the basics of using command lines, because it is beyond the scope of this document. Then:

1. Install Python 3.12, 3.11 or 3.10. You can do this from the Python website; or, you can use chocolatey, a Windows package manager:

   Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))
   

2. Install uv, which makes subsequent installation of Python packages much faster:

   choco install -y uv
   

3. Switch into a directory that you want to store your outputs, custom nodes and models in. This is your ComfyUI workspace. For example, if you want to store your workspace in a directory called ComfyUI_Workspace in your Documents folder:

   mkdir ~/Documents/ComfyUI_Workspace
   cd ~/Documents/ComfyUI_Workspace
   

4. Create a virtual environment:

   uv venv --python 3.12
   

5. Run the following command to install comfyui into your current environment. This will correctly select the version of torch that matches the GPU on your machine (NVIDIA or CPU on Windows, NVIDIA, Intel, AMD or CPU on Linux):

   uv pip install --torch-backend=auto "comfyui@git+https://github.com/hiddenswitch/ComfyUI.git"
   

6. To run the web server:

   uv run comfyui
   

   When you run workflows that use well-known models, this will download them automatically.

   To make it accessible over the network:

   uv run comfyui --listen
   

Running

On Windows, you should change into the directory where you ran uv venv, then run comfyui. For example, if you ran uv venv inside ~\Documents\ComfyUI_Workspace\

cd ~\Documents\ComfyUI_Workspace\
uv run comfyui

Upgrades are delivered frequently and automatically. To force one immediately, run uv pip install --upgrade like so:

uv pip install --torch-backend=auto --upgrade "comfyui@git+https://github.com/hiddenswitch/ComfyUI.git"

macOS

1. Install brew, a macOS package manager, if you haven't already:

   /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
   

   Then, install uv:

   HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE=1 brew install uv
   

2. Switch into a directory that you want to store your outputs, custom nodes and models in. This is your ComfyUI workspace. For example, if you want to store your workspace in a directory called ComfyUI_Workspace in your Documents folder:

   mkdir -pv ~/Documents/ComfyUI_Workspace
   cd ~/Documents/ComfyUI_Workspace
   

3. Create a virtual environment:

   uv venv --python 3.12
   

4. Run the following command to install comfyui into your current environment. The mps extra improves performance.

   uv pip install "comfyui[mps]@git+https://github.com/hiddenswitch/ComfyUI.git"
   

5. To run the web server:

   uv run comfyui
   

   When you run workflows that use well-known models, this will download them automatically.

   To make it accessible over the network:

   uv run comfyui --listen
   

Running

On macOS, you will need to open the terminal and cd into the directory in which you ran uv venv. For example, if you ran uv venv in ~/Documents/ComfyUI_Workspace/:

cd ~/Documents/ComfyUI_Workspace/
uv run comfyui

Model Downloading

ComfyUI LTS supports downloading models on demand.

Known models will be downloaded from Hugging Face or CivitAI.

To support licensed models like Flux, you will need to login to Hugging Face from the command line.

1. Activate your Python environment by cd followed by your workspace directory. For example, if your workspace is located in ~/Documents/ComfyUI_Workspace, do:

cd ~/Documents/ComfyUI_Workspace

Then, on Windows: & .venv/scripts/activate.ps1; on macOS: source .venv/bin/activate.

2. Login with Huggingface:

uv pip install huggingface-cli
huggingface-cli login

3. Agree to the terms for a repository. For example, visit https://huggingface.co/black-forest-labs/FLUX.1-dev, login with your HuggingFace account, then choose Agree.

To disable model downloading, start with the command line argument --disable-known-models: comfyui --disable-known-models. However, this will generally only increase your toil for no return.

Saving Space on Windows

To save space, you will need to enable Developer Mode in the Windows Settings, then reboot your computer. This way, Hugging Face can download models into a common place for all your apps, and place small "link" files that ComfyUI and others can read instead of whole copies of models.

Using ComfyUI in Google Colab

Access an example Colab Notebook here: https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1Gd9F8iYRJW-LG8JLiwGTKLAcXLJ5eH78?usp=sharing

This demonstrates running a workflow inside colab and accessing the UI remotely.

Using a "Python Embedded" "Portable" Style Distribution

This is a "ComfyUI" "Portable" style distribution with a "python_embedded" directory, carefully spelled correctly. It includes Python 3.12, torch==2.7.1+cu128, sageattention and the ComfyUI-Manager.

On Windows:

1. Download all the files in this the latest release: (comfyui_portable.exe, comfyui_portable.7z.001 and comfyui_portable.7z.002).
2. Run comfyui_portable.exe to extract a workspace containing an embedded Python 3.12.
3. Double-click on comfyui.bat inside ComfyUI_Workspace to start the server.

LTS Custom Nodes

These packages have been adapted to be installable with pip and download models to the correct places:

• ELLA T5 Text Conditioning for SD1.5: uv pip install git+https://github.com/AppMana/appmana-comfyui-nodes-ella.git
• IP Adapter: uv pip install git+https://github.com/AppMana/appmana-comfyui-nodes-ipadapter-plus
• ControlNet Auxiliary Preprocessors: uv pip install git+https://github.com/AppMana/appmana-comfyui-nodes-controlnet-aux.git.
• LayerDiffuse Alpha Channel Diffusion: uv pip install git+https://github.com/AppMana/appmana-comfyui-nodes-layerdiffuse.git.
• BRIA Background Removal: uv pip install git+https://github.com/AppMana/appmana-comfyui-nodes-bria-bg-removal.git
• Video Frame Interpolation: uv pip install git+https://github.com/AppMana/appmana-comfyui-nodes-video-frame-interpolation
• Video Helper Suite: uv pip install git+https://github.com/AppMana/appmana-comfyui-nodes-video-helper-suite
• AnimateDiff Evolved: uv pip install git+https://github.com/AppMana/appmana-comfyui-nodes-animatediff-evolved
• Impact Pack: uv pip install git+https://github.com/AppMana/appmana-comfyui-nodes-impact-pack
• TensorRT: uv pip install git+https://github.com/AppMAna/appmana-comfyui-nodes-tensorrt

Custom nodes are generally supported by this fork. Use these for a bug-free experience.

Request first-class, LTS support for more nodes by creating a new issue. Remember, ordinary custom nodes from the ComfyUI ecosystem work in this fork. Create an issue if you experience a bug or if you think something needs more attention.

Running with TLS

To serve with https:// on Windows easily, use Caddy. Extract caddy.exe to a directory, then run it:

caddy reverse-proxy --from localhost:443 --to localhost:8188 --tls self_signed

Notes for AMD Users

Installation for ROCm should be explicit:

uv pip install "comfyui[rocm]@git+https://github.com/hiddenswitch/ComfyUI.git"

Then, until a workaround is found, specify these variables:

RDNA 3 (RX 7600 and later)

export HSA_OVERRIDE_GFX_VERSION=11.0.0
uv run comfyui

RDNA 2 (RX 6600 and others)

export HSA_OVERRIDE_GFX_VERSION=10.3.0
uv run comfyui