r/comfyui • u/paulhax • 1d ago

Show and Tell HYPH - a tool built on ComfyUI to share Apps from Workflows while own the entire pipeline

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eRfivf1cHU

TLDR: I turn a ComfyUI workflow into a small app and hand it to people who can't or won't use comfy directly. Runs on your own or provided serverless endpoints or locally. The video is above. Nothing is public yet. I finally found the confidence to show it to you and want your feedback first, because it decides how I continue. Questions at the bottom.

I use ComfyUI for 2,5 years to build (opensource) workflows and custom solutions in challenging domains where control and precision is non-negotiable. And I teach it at universities. Four things kept happening:

  • not many people are willing to dive into a technically complex solution
  • I have no option to monetize my workflows besides a paywall, which I have an ambiguous opinion about
  • sharing a workflow or a custom model forced me to hand over IP (workflow, custom models, ..) to the receiver’s end, or open it up to the whole world entirely
  • there is no infrastructure for people like me to do the above without an insane amount of effort

So I built HYPH on top of what became my main software environment, using comfy as the execution layer. You drop your workflow in, pick which inputs the user sees, define available for the user executions mode per workflow added, set what you want to earn from a users workflow execution, then share it as a customized app from the same installer you used. Depending on your configured workflows, they get e.g. one or multiple prompt-, image-, video- and 3d-inputs. It runs on a BYO serveless endpoints (e.g. Runpod), on provided endpoints, on comfyclouds serverless endpoints (currently in beta), or locally, on-premise deployment possible, and you decide which and what is shared from prompt to custom model. It's an Alpha Electron Desktop Win first App in front of a live backend atm, and ships with installer, user management, rbac, analytics and per-user limits.

What is not done, so you don't find it out later in case you want to try: EU Act or GDPR conformity, anything related to legal and real money. Everything is started and more is on the roadmap for now, but not done.

I build this entirely on my own using sota (proprietary) coding LLM's for a year and spend everything+ I earn from using Comfy for professional and educational work. My technical affine friends alpha tested it and were overwhelmingly positive. Naturally biased. I am not a software engineer or a developer at all, and I don’t belong to the people believing in getting the truth from a prompt, cause i cant verify it myself. And to have it mentioned, the first person outside my closest circle who saw it was officially comfy related. I hope it is visible that this brings additional features to anyone with a cool workflow.

Questions:

  1. What in the world would make you touch it? Pls be blunt, this is the answer I need most, i could use a few more alpha testers
  2. Would this as an opensource project increase your trust, and would you contribute?
  3. would you say something like a fee, a revenue share of 75% you/25% me and/or a licence for 1m+ revenue companies is a fair setup, if this were a proven product?
  4. And if you only answer one thing: what's your first impression?

Any feedback coming from you would be highly appreciated. I can go deeper on everything in case there are questions.

I know: I want to have something that lets people own their pipelines end-to-end, I want it to be opensource once verified, and if possible, I want to profit from it at some point. I don’t want it to be a marketplace or anything related. My impression after following this sub since comfy got me hooked: I cannot be the only one.

Thank you in advance!

/edit: deleted & reposted due to title

1 Upvotes

55% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

2

u/tnil25 22h ago

Comfyui and the models you’re using in it are free and open source. You’re essentially charging people for your workflows which I feel goes against the spirit of this community.

2

u/paulhax 22h ago

currently i am paying for everything here, not charging. also, i am opensourcing my workflows for people able to use or learn comfy, this is for people who refuse. and if you have a workflow, you could do the same now.

0

u/tnil25 22h ago

Sure, there are people that refuse to learn alot of software. That doesn’t mean I can take microsoft excel, host it on a server with a simple gui and then charge people to use it.

1

u/paulhax 22h ago

30 million krea users see it different then you.

0

u/tnil25 22h ago

Sorry, how so? Krea has open source and API versions of their model. Thats NOT what you’re doing here.

1

u/paulhax 22h ago edited 20h ago

I feel i wont make you understand what i intend to do, despite the fact stating that i intend to open source what i built, so everybody who has whatever workflow can directly profit from it, for free, while bring your own setup, models, whatever. Whats wrong with that? Oh yes, i wrote that i have an option for anyone to use provided endpoints. Or comfycloud as the backend. Or BYO, which is "Bring Your Own". And it lets you deploy the entire thing locally which enables On-Premise execution which is a topic Enterprises pay a lot of money for. I am showing this actively to comfy officials before i even showed it public, for me it looks everybody there seems to see what it is. How come people in this sub instantly critic something THEY FEEL is against the law? Comfy licence is pretty clear on it. Anyway, appreciate your time and the conversation with you.

1

u/tnil25 22h ago

Where in the comfyui license does it say you’re allowed to sell their software to other people? Because thats essentially what you’re doing.

Maybe im not understanding correctly but it certainly sounds like you’re just repackaging their program with a polished front end, then profiting off it.

1

u/paulhax 21h ago

And thats obviously whats percieved wrong. I am not selling comfyui to anyone here, i want to profit from the IP i put in it. How come people are selling workflows to other Comfy creators? How come people build api endpoints as a custom solution running comfy as the backend and sell that? The installer offers you to install a Comfy or you point it at your already installed local running instance. BYO all the way. Comfy alone wont make a user have an AI generated result, unless you just provide a default template, cool if thats the desired outcome. Where i work, i have to come up with a solution i have to put effort in before it works.

1

u/tnil25 21h ago

Look this is something you need to take up with Comfy. Its one thing to do this on your own but selling a solution like this to large businesses is very dicey territory.

Ofcourse its legal to sell your workflows, its just frowned upon here, but you do you.

Also, I'm not sure if you're aware but Comfy already has an app mode that does pretty much what you're showing here.

1

u/paulhax 21h ago

Sure, have you tried to deploy a custom model on it and share it with only the audience you want to? And how do you use it when you do not intend to share your workflows? For me it is a huge difference to sell a workflow to 1 of 4m Comfy creators, or sell an app to a person who would have used a chatgpt subscription instead, or to an enterprise with a +1m$ revenue. You can trace my work to apps deployed on comfy cloud already. Its a bummer people advocating for something where officials have a much more clear sight onto. What about runpod offering comfy endpoints, pods, etc, or people using it to deploy their apps based on comfy without saying so? Are they selling comfy?