A little while ago I posted about Orange, a frontend I built for turning ComfyUI workflows into simple tools.
The idea is still the same:
You build the complicated workflow in ComfyUI.
Everybody else gets a simple app.
Since the first post, most of my work has been making Orange easier to actually install, configure, and live with.
Now I'm calling it Orange v1.0.0.
Pinokio is now the easy way to install it
The Pinokio launcher has changed quite a bit.
You can install:
Orange + ComfyUI
A complete managed local setup.
or:
Orange Only
For people already running ComfyUI through Stability Matrix, another launcher, another computer, or a remote GPU server.
Managed installs can also temporarily switch to an existing ComfyUI without removing the bundled one.
The launcher also handles a bunch of boring-but-important stuff now:
- Cleaner startup
- Port conflict detection
- Separate Orange and ComfyUI updates
- ComfyUI rollback
- Quiet terminal output
- Useful generation and error activity
- Full logs in the background when you actually need them
First run doesn't assume what you want
Fresh installs now open a setup flow that checks the connected ComfyUI first.
Orange looks at the backend, GPU, nodes, and models before suggesting anything.
You can use the included curated workflows, reuse compatible models you already have, download missing pieces, or skip all of it and add your own workflows.
Nothing forces you into the starter setup.
There's now a curated workflow library
I wanted new installs to have a few useful examples without turning Orange into a giant model manager.
The current library includes things like:
- Z-Image Turbo
- Krea 2 Turbo
- FLUX.2 Klein image editing
- SeedVR2 upscaling
Orange checks what's already installed before downloading anything and selects appropriate model variants based on the connected hardware where possible.
Workflow Preflight became a big part of Orange
One of the biggest changes is Workflow Preflight.
Before a workflow gets handed to users, Orange can check it against the available ComfyUI backends.
It can catch things like:
- Missing custom nodes
- Missing models
- Bad Orange mappings
- Backend-specific compatibility problems
- Workflow assets that aren't portable
That also feeds into multi-backend routing, so Orange can avoid sending a workflow to a machine that can't actually run it.
This is where I want most of the complexity to live.
Not on the Generate screen.
Orange can also look less like Orange
There's now a full personalization system for deployments that aren't really supposed to look like my weird orange cat project.
You can change the app name, tagline, colors, logos, icons, and themes.
So the same Orange backend can become a branded internal image tool without rebuilding the frontend.
The philosophy hasn't changed
I still don't want Orange to become another generic ComfyUI parameter editor.
If the workflow engineer can decide something once, the person generating an image shouldn't have to decide it every time.
Models, samplers, schedulers, LoRAs, CFG, node settings, and other workflow-engineering decisions generally stay inside ComfyUI.
The Orange user should get something much closer to:
Prompt → Generate
Everything complicated happens behind that button.
Orange is now MIT licensed
Orange and the Pinokio launcher are now released under the MIT License.
Third-party models still keep their own licenses, so Orange also documents those separately where the curated library downloads them.
v1.0
I'm calling the current version Orange v1.0.0.
Not because it's finished, but because the basic shape of the project feels settled now.
From here I want to spend more time actually using it with real workflows and fixing problems that show up in real deployments instead of adding controls just because ComfyUI has them.
Orange:
https://github.com/saintbrodie/Orange
Pinokio launcher:
https://github.com/saintbrodie/orange-pinokio
If you're using ComfyUI to build tools for people who should never have to look at the node graph, I'd love to hear what you're doing and what Orange is still missing.
A little while ago I posted about Orange, a frontend I built for turning ComfyUI workflows into simple tools.
The idea is still the same:
You build the complicated workflow in ComfyUI.
Everybody else gets a simple app.
Since the first post, most of my work has been making Orange easier to actually install, configure, and live with.
Now I'm calling it Orange v1.0.0.
Pinokio is now the easy way to install it
The Pinokio launcher has changed quite a bit.
You can install:
Orange + ComfyUI
A complete managed local setup.
or:
Orange Only
For people already running ComfyUI through Stability Matrix, another launcher, another computer, or a remote GPU server.
Managed installs can also temporarily switch to an existing ComfyUI without removing the bundled one.
The launcher also handles a bunch of boring-but-important stuff now:
First run doesn't assume what you want
Fresh installs now open a setup flow that checks the connected ComfyUI first.
Orange looks at the backend, GPU, nodes, and models before suggesting anything.
You can use the included curated workflows, reuse compatible models you already have, download missing pieces, or skip all of it and add your own workflows.
Nothing forces you into the starter setup.
There's now a curated workflow library
I wanted new installs to have a few useful examples without turning Orange into a giant model manager.
The current library includes things like:
Orange checks what's already installed before downloading anything and selects appropriate model variants based on the connected hardware where possible.
Workflow Preflight became a big part of Orange
One of the biggest changes is Workflow Preflight.
Before a workflow gets handed to users, Orange can check it against the available ComfyUI backends.
It can catch things like:
That also feeds into multi-backend routing, so Orange can avoid sending a workflow to a machine that can't actually run it.
This is where I want most of the complexity to live.
Not on the Generate screen.
Orange can also look less like Orange
There's now a full personalization system for deployments that aren't really supposed to look like my weird orange cat project.
You can change the app name, tagline, colors, logos, icons, and themes.
So the same Orange backend can become a branded internal image tool without rebuilding the frontend.
The philosophy hasn't changed
I still don't want Orange to become another generic ComfyUI parameter editor.
If the workflow engineer can decide something once, the person generating an image shouldn't have to decide it every time.
Models, samplers, schedulers, LoRAs, CFG, node settings, and other workflow-engineering decisions generally stay inside ComfyUI.
The Orange user should get something much closer to:
Prompt → Generate
Everything complicated happens behind that button.
Orange is now MIT licensed
Orange and the Pinokio launcher are now released under the MIT License.
Third-party models still keep their own licenses, so Orange also documents those separately where the curated library downloads them.
v1.0
I'm calling the current version Orange v1.0.0.
Not because it's finished, but because the basic shape of the project feels settled now.
From here I want to spend more time actually using it with real workflows and fixing problems that show up in real deployments instead of adding controls just because ComfyUI has them.
Orange:
https://github.com/saintbrodie/Orange
Pinokio launcher:
https://github.com/saintbrodie/orange-pinokio
If you're using ComfyUI to build tools for people who should never have to look at the node graph, I'd love to hear what you're doing and what Orange is still missing.