right, but how is it better than Lovart AI, Freepik, Recraft, or any of the others?

Your question is a bit like asking how a word processor is better than a typewriter... they both produce typed text, but otherwise not comparable.

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ch4s3 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I'm looking at their blog[1] and yeah it looks like they're doing literally the exact same thing the other tools I named are doing but with a UI inspired by things like shader pipeline tools in game engines. It isn't clear how it's doing all of the things the grandparent is claiming.

[1]https://blog.comfy.org/p/nano-banana-via-comfyui-api-nodes

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lelandbatey 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

The killer app of comfy UI and node based editors in general is that they allow "normal people" to do programmer-like things, almost like script like things. In a word: you have better repeatability and appropriate flexibility/control. Control because you can chain several operations in isolation and tweak the operations individually stacking them to achieve the desired result. Repeatability because you can get the "algorithm" (the sequence of steps) right for your needs and then start feeding different input images in to repeat an effect.

I'd say that comfy UI is like Photoshop vs Paint; layers, non-destructive editing, those are all things you could replicate the effects of with Paint and skill, but by adopting the more advanced concepts of Photoshop you can work faster and make changes easier vs Paint.

So it is with node based editing in nearly any tool.

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qarl 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

There's no need to belittle dataflow graphs. They are quite a nice model in many settings. I daresay they might be the PERFECT model for networks of agents. But time will tell.

Think of it this way: spreadsheets had a massive impact on the world even though you can do the same thing with code. Dataflow graph interfaces provide a similar level of usefulness.

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ch4s3 4 days ago | parent [-]

I'm not belittling it, in fact I pointed to place where they work well. I just don't see how in this case it adds much over the other products I mentioned that in some cases offer similar layering with a different UX. It still doesn't really do anything to help with style cohesion across assets or the nondeterminism issues.

	▲	qarl 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Hm. It seemed like you were belittling it. Still seems that way.

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dgfitz 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Interesting, have you used both? A typewriter types when the key is pressed, a word processor sends an interrupt though the keyboard into the interrupt device through a bus and from there its 57 different steps until it shows up on the screen.

They’re about as similar as oil and water.

	▲	withinboredom 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		I have! And the non-comparative nature was exactly the point I was trying to make.