ComfyUI ComfyUI 0.42.0 (commit cdf272f), PyTorch 2.14.1 CPU: our test log

ComfyUI 0.42.0 installed in 17.42 s and its CPU-only server was ready in 30.1 s with 1014 node types, but we did not generate an image.

Tested by us on 2026-10-26. Local open-weight model, not the vendor's hosted models. A smoke test on a CPU-only box, not a benchmark.

Result at a glance

ComfyUI test record
FieldValue
ResultPassed
Version testedComfyUI 0.42.0 (commit cdf272f), PyTorch 2.14.1 CPU
Date and time2026-10-26, 10:40 CDT (America/Chicago)
TaskClone ComfyUI, install it into a fresh Python 3.12 environment with the CPU build of PyTorch, start the server with --cpu, and query /system_stats and /object_info. Pass means the server starts without a GPU and reports its nodes. No checkpoint was downloaded and no image was generated.
Model usednone (no image model loaded)
HardwareLinux x86_64 virtual machine (Debian 13), 8 vCPU (Intel Xeon, 1 thread per core), 15 GiB RAM, no GPU
Install17.42 s, 2193 MB
Time to ready30.1 s
Node types1014

What we found

  • The server reported ComfyUI 0.42.0 on a single CPU device and PyTorch 2.14.1+cpu.
  • /object_info listed 1014 node types in 0.31 s, including KSampler, CLIPTextEncode, CheckpointLoaderSimple, VAEDecode and SaveImage.
  • The checkpoint list was empty because we installed no model files.

What we ran, step by step

Commands run, wall-clock time and exit code
StepWall timeExit codeNotes
Clone repository2.33 s0Shallow clone, commit cdf272f.
Install with uv (cold, no cache)17.42 s02193 MB on disk including the CPU PyTorch build (2.14.1+cpu). Load 18.69.
Task command (start server, probe API)32.68 s0Ready after 30.1 s on a shared machine (load 18.42).
Exact commands (paths shortened)
# Clone repository
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/comfyanonymous/ComfyUI.git

# Install with uv (cold, no cache)
uv pip install torch torchvision torchaudio (CPU wheels) && uv pip install -r requirements.txt

# Task command (start server, probe API)
python main.py --cpu --listen 127.0.0.1 --port 8189 (driven by tasks3/comfy_task.py)

Raw output (excerpts)

Probe results
{
 "ready_s": 30.1,
 "system_stats": {
  "comfyui_version": "0.42.0",
  "python_version": "3.12.15 (main, Oct 21 2026, 17:47:06) [Clang 23.1.3 ]",
  "pytorch_version": "2.14.1+cpu",
  "ram_total": 16779640832
 },
 "devices": [
  [
   "cpu",
   "cpu"
  ]
 ],
 "object_info_s": 0.31,
 "node_types": 1014,
 "sample_nodes": [
  "KSampler",
  "CheckpointLoaderSimple",
  "CLIPTextEncode",
  "SaveImage",
  "VAEDecode"
 ],
 "checkpoints_listed": []
}
The task script (tasks3/comfy_task.py)
import subprocess, time, json, urllib.request, sys, os, signal
PY = "/workspace/tests2/work/py/comfyui/bin/python"
cwd = "/workspace/tests2/work/comfy/ComfyUI"
t0 = time.time()
p = subprocess.Popen([PY, "main.py", "--cpu", "--listen", "127.0.0.1", "--port", "8189", "--disable-auto-launch"], cwd=cwd, stdout=open("/workspace/tests2/logs/comfy-server.log", "w"), stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
def get(path):
    return json.load(urllib.request.urlopen("http://127.0.0.1:8189" + path, timeout=30))
res = {}
try:
    for i in range(240):
        try:
            st = get("/system_stats"); res["ready_s"] = round(time.time() - t0, 1); break
        except Exception:
            time.sleep(1)
    else:
        raise SystemExit("server never became ready")
    res["system_stats"] = {k: st["system"].get(k) for k in ("comfyui_version", "python_version", "pytorch_version", "ram_total")}
    res["devices"] = [(d["name"], d["type"]) for d in st["devices"]]
    t1 = time.time(); oi = get("/object_info"); res["object_info_s"] = round(time.time() - t1, 2)
    res["node_types"] = len(oi)
    res["sample_nodes"] = [n for n in ("KSampler", "CheckpointLoaderSimple", "CLIPTextEncode", "SaveImage", "VAEDecode") if n in oi]
    res["checkpoints_listed"] = oi["CheckpointLoaderSimple"]["input"]["required"]["ckpt_name"][0]
finally:
    p.send_signal(signal.SIGINT)
    try: p.wait(20)
    except Exception: p.kill()
print("RESULT_JSON " + json.dumps(res))

Gotchas and things that broke

  • Nothing useful can be generated until you add a checkpoint; the common Stable Diffusion files are multiple gigabytes.
  • The full install, with PyTorch, is about 2.2 GB.

What we did not test

  • Generating any image: no checkpoint was downloaded (the SD-Turbo file we considered is 5.2 GB, and the machine's free memory could not hold it).
  • GPU use, custom nodes, the ComfyUI Manager, workflows from the web interface, and the browser UI.
  • Speed of image generation on CPU or on a GPU.

Reproduce it

Versions change. These commands install whatever is latest on the day you run them unless a version is pinned, so expect different results later. The version we measured is in the table above.

git clone https://github.com/comfyanonymous/ComfyUI && cd ComfyUI
uv venv -p 3.12 .venv && VIRTUAL_ENV=.venv uv pip install torch torchvision torchaudio --extra-index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu && VIRTUAL_ENV=.venv uv pip install -r requirements.txt
.venv/bin/python main.py --cpu --port 8189
curl http://127.0.0.1:8189/system_stats

How to read this test

Every number on this page was measured on this one machine, which also ran other jobs, so timings are indicative and vary run to run. A pass means our small task worked once or as stated, a fail means it did not work as we ran it; neither says how the tool behaves with a vendor's frontier model, on a GPU, or at scale. Where a tool could not run without an account or a GPU, we say so instead of guessing.

See the testing rig for the hardware, the local model and the rules we follow, and the test hub for every other test.

  • faster-whisper (speech to text): faster-whisper 1.2.1 transcribed 41 s of speech at 2.4 percent word error with the base.en model in float32 (deterministic), but the int8 setting gave 2 to 60 percent on identical audio across runs.
  • Piper (text to speech): Piper 1.8.0 synthesised 10 sentences (about 41 s of 22.05 kHz audio) on CPU in 1.4 to 1.5 s each including process start; 3.5 s uv install, 167 MB.
  • whisper.cpp: We could not run whisper.cpp: no prebuilt Linux release was available for download and this machine has no make, g++ or cmake to build it.

All test logs · How we test

FAQ

Does ComfyUI start without a GPU?

Yes: with --cpu the server was ready in 30.1 s on an 8-core CPU-only machine and listed 1014 nodes. We did not generate an image.

Sources

Markdown version for agents: /tests/comfyui.md