Open-source alternatives to paid AI tools

SkipTheSub / Midjourney

Open-source alternatives to Midjourney

Monthly price for Midjourney: TBD (unverified — never invented). Below: 2 open-source alternatives.

Comfy-Org/ComfyUI

What it can do

The most powerful and modular diffusion model GUI, api and backend with a graph/nodes interface. The fastest local inference engine in the world. (GitHub project description) source

What it can't do

TBD

Minimum hardware

RAM
8 GB
VRAM
4 GB
Runs on
  • gpu
  • cpu
Note
as low as 4GB VRAM + 8GB RAM
source

Setup difficulty

2/5 — Single documented command (docker run / pip / npm / brew install) source

Freshness

Stars
137,887
Last push
2026-10-16
Latest release
v0.41.0

Running cost (per month, roughly)

VPS: $48/mo (assumes DigitalOcean Basic Droplet with 8 GB RAM) source

Local electricity: $ —/mo watts / 1000 × hours/day × 30 × 0.1831 $/kWh source

Fetched 2026-10-16 from the GitHub API.

Open on GitHub

lllyasviel/Fooocus

What it can do

Focus on prompting and generating. (GitHub project description) source

What it can't do

TBD

Minimum hardware

TBD

Setup difficulty

TBD

Freshness

not fetched yet

Running cost (per month, roughly)

VPS: TBD — minimum RAM not verified

Local electricity: $ —/mo watts / 1000 × hours/day × 30 × 0.1831 $/kWh source

Open on GitHub

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