ComfyUI GPU rental showdown: Modal's 35s cold starts and free 1TiB beat RunPod
ronalder100 · reddit · 2026-09-21
The author systematically compares GPU rental platforms for ComfyUI after a Mac mini M4 couldn't handle Z-Image Turbo:
- RunPod: best docs and community, prepaid, but slow cold starts (3-4 min wake: 80s boot + 90s loading 18GB weights) and storage at $0.07/GB/month.
- Modal: the only one that solved the problem — GPU snapshot wakes an 18GB model in 35s vs 100s on RunPod serverless+FlashBoot; storage free up to 1TiB/month; L4 $0.80/h, A10 $1.10/h, no 4090s.
- Vast.ai: 4090s at $0.14-0.16/h (4-5x cheaper) but mixed reliability reports.
- Beam: cheaper per-second and free 1TB storage, but €20 upfront, no free tier.
- Google Cloud Run: no persistent disk; Koyeb/Fly.io: storage too costly ($0.50/$0.15 per GB); Railway/Render/Vercel: no GPUs.
The author ends with a table but no decision, inviting community input.
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