Yes. ComfyUI is open source under the GPL-3.0 license and costs nothing to run on your own machine. The repository has about 133,000 stars. Comfy Cloud is the paid hosted option.

Is Visual Sandbox cheaper than ComfyUI?

No. ComfyUI running on a computer you already own costs nothing in software. Visual Sandbox charges for each generation. The reason to choose Visual Sandbox is setup and hosting, not price.

How much does Comfy Cloud cost?

Standard is $20 a month for 4,200 credits, about 380 five second videos. Creator is $35 for 7,400 credits and about 670 videos. Pro is $100 for 21,100 credits and about 1,915 videos. Team starts at $665 a month for 147,700 credits and is sized on a slider. Billed yearly the first three are $192, $336 and $960. Every plan works out near $0.05 a five second video.

Can ComfyUI run Nano Banana 2 or Veo 3.1?

Not on your own GPU, because those models have no open weights. Comfy Cloud reaches some proprietary models through Partner Nodes, and those runs spend the same subscription credits.

What do I give up by choosing Visual Sandbox?

Low level control. ComfyUI exposes samplers, schedulers, ControlNet weights, LoRA stacking, and about 60,000 community nodes. Visual Sandbox exposes the settings each model publishes and nothing below them.

All comparisons

Visual Sandbox vs ComfyUI

One you install and control. One you open and use.

In short

ComfyUI costs $0. This is not a price argument.
ComfyUI runs open weights. We run hosted models that have none.
Setup is hours and ongoing there, and nothing here.
Comfy Cloud removes the machine from $20 a month, at about $0.05 a five second video.

Our take. Use ComfyUI if you own a GPU and want control. Use Visual Sandbox if the model you need has no open weights.

See a model's price

ComfyUI

ComfyUI is free, open source software you run on your own GPU, with a node canvas and about 60,000 community nodes.

Price: $0, GPL-3.0
Hosted option: Comfy Cloud, $20 to $700 a month
Community: About 133,000 stars, 60,000 nodes

Side by side

The same 9 questions, asked of ComfyUI

Visual Sandbox compared with ComfyUI, question by question
What is compared	Visual Sandbox	ComfyUI
What you pay for	Each generation	Nothing. The software is free
What the balance is in	Money. One credit is one cent	No balance. Your own GPU, or a Comfy Cloud plan
Free tier	None. A $10 minimum top up	All of it, on hardware you already own
Cheapest paid tier	There is no plan	Comfy Cloud Standard, $20 a month
A month you make nothing	$0	$0, plus electricity
The price before you run	A dollar figure on every model page, before you sign in	Free to run locally, so there is nothing to read
Working as a team	Not offered	A workflow file you version and hand to a colleague
From the terminal or an agent	A CLI, an MCP server and an API, on the same balance	Yours to script, plus the Comfy API
The catalogue	37 hosted models, none with open weights	Open weights, plus about 60,000 community nodes

Key takeaways

Is Visual Sandbox a good ComfyUI alternative?

Where we win

Nothing to install: No Python, no weights, no VRAM tuning.
The models with no open weights: Nano Banana 2, Veo 3.1, Seedance 2.0, GPT Image 2 and Hunyuan 3D 3.1. No GPU you own can run them.
A price before the run: Every model page shows its tiers without an account.
A receipt per generation: The 25% markup is stored on the run, so an old line never changes.
A draft mode: P-Video runs at $0.01 a second against $0.03 with draft off.

Where ComfyUI wins

Free and open source: GPL-3.0, about 133,000 stars. Studios ship real work with it.
Every parameter is yours: The sampler, the scheduler, the CFG value, the ControlNet weight and the LoRA stack.
About 60,000 community nodes: Plus community fine tunes from CivitAI and Hugging Face.
The workflow is a file: You own it, version it, hand it to a colleague, or deploy it as a production API.
Comfy Cloud: A Blackwell RTX 6000 Pro, about 900 pre installed models, and 5 free runs with no card.

Worth checking

Local ComfyUI costs nothing: On a machine you already own, and the software is very good. Against that there is no price argument to make.
Comfy Cloud wins video at volume: About $0.05 a five second clip at full use of a plan, against $0.15 at our 720p rate. Our case is the floor, not the rate.
Free does not mean no work: Python and dependencies, model files, custom node conflicts, batch size against VRAM.
Partner Nodes: Comfy Cloud reaches some proprietary models, and those runs spend the same plan credits.
The agent path: Comfy has its own MCP, so that is a difference of shape, not of kind.

Nothing to install

The price is on the page before the first run

This is the live price card off our Nano Banana 2 page, a model no GPU you own can run.

No Python, no weights, no VRAM tuning.
No account needed to read it.
ComfyUI is free. This is what hosting costs instead.

ComfyUI charges you time. We charge a listed price per run.

Nano Banana 2

What one run costs, before any account

1K: $0.09 / image
2K: $0.13 / image
4K: $0.19 / image

See it on the model page

The money

What each one costs to run

If cost is your only question and you already own the GPU, the answer is ComfyUI. Say that out loud. Comfy Cloud is the comparison that matters here, because both of us are hosted and both of us bill for the work.

$10

Visual Sandbox, to start

The minimum top up. No plan follows it.

ComfyUI, on your own GPU

GPL-3.0, plus the electricity and the hours.

$20 to $700

Comfy Cloud, a month

Standard is 4,200 credits, about 380 five second videos.

Row	Visual Sandbox	ComfyUI local	Comfy Cloud
Software price	Hosted, per generation	$0, GPL-3.0	Included in the plan
Hardware	None needed	Your GPU	Blackwell RTX 6000 Pro, 96 GB VRAM
Entry	$10 minimum top up	Free	5 free runs, no card
Ongoing	Per generation	$0 plus electricity	$20 to $700 a month
A 5 second video	$0.15 at 720p, or $0.05 in draft	Your own GPU's time	About $0.05, at full use of a plan
Setup time	None	Hours, and ongoing	Minutes
What expires	Nothing	Nothing	Plan credits reset. Top ups roll over up to a year

Comfy Cloud publishes what a plan makes: Standard $20 for 4,200 credits and about 380 five second videos, Creator $35 for 7,400 and 670, Pro $100 for 21,100 and 1,915. Every plan lands near $0.05 a video.
That beats our rate. P-Video is $0.15 for a five second clip at 720p, and $0.05 in draft. Above about 133 clips a month a Comfy Cloud plan costs less than our 720p rate.
The floor is what we win on. A plan bills $20 in a month you make one clip, and $20 in a month you make none.
Comfy Cloud charges for active GPU time only, not for the time you spend building. A single run can last up to 30 minutes, or up to an hour on the Pro plan.
On the Creator, Pro and Team plans you can bring your own LoRA files into Comfy Cloud.
The real question is not which canvas you prefer. It is whether the model you need has weights you can download.

Which one fits

Which one fits you?

Four questions. The answer names ComfyUI when ComfyUI is the right call, which is often.

01 of 04

Do you own a capable GPU?

Or use both

Most people who ask this question end up running both, and that is the right answer.

01
Run the open weights on the GPU you already own, free.
02
Come here when the model you need has no weights to download.
03
Pay for those runs only, with no plan underneath them.

The call

Which one to pick

Pick Visual Sandbox when

The model you need has no open weights.
You have no GPU, or no wish to manage one.
You want a result in two minutes and you do not want to learn a graph.
Your usage is occasional and a monthly plan would go to waste.
You want the price written down before you run.

Pick ComfyUI when

You already own a capable GPU and you want to use it.
You need the sampler, the scheduler, the CFG value or the ControlNet weight curve.
You want to stack LoRA files, or train and use your own.
You depend on community fine tunes from CivitAI or Hugging Face.
Your studio needs the workflow to be a file you own, version and hand to a colleague.
You want to deploy a workflow as a production API.
You want to read and change every step, and you enjoy that.
Your budget is zero.