Stable Diffusion WebUI: Local Image Generation
Stable Diffusion WebUI is the interface that made local image generation accessible. It wraps the model in a browser UI with every parameter exposed, and an extension system that grew into an ecosystem.
What you get
Text to image, image to image, inpainting for editing part of an image, outpainting for extending one, and upscaling. Every sampler, step count, and guidance scale is adjustable, which is either the appeal or the problem depending on your patience.
The extension ecosystem is the reason it stayed dominant for so long. ControlNet, which lets you condition generation on a pose, depth map, or edge outline, is the significant one and turned the tool from a slot machine into something directionable.
Hardware
A GPU with at least 6GB of VRAM for comfortable use, more for larger models and higher resolutions. NVIDIA has the smoothest path; AMD works through ROCm with more setup. CPU generation is possible and slow enough to be impractical.
VRAM is the binding constraint rather than raw speed. --medvram and --lowvram flags trade speed for fitting into less memory.
Models
The interface is not the model. You download checkpoints separately, and the community has produced an enormous number of fine-tunes for particular styles and subjects.
Be aware of what you are downloading. Checkpoints in the older pickle format can execute code on load; the safetensors format cannot, and is what you should prefer.
Alternatives
ComfyUI exposes the same underlying models as a node graph, which is harder to start with and far more capable once you want reproducible multi-step pipelines. Many people run both.
InvokeAI targets a more polished, less overwhelming interface with a unified canvas.
Running it
It is a Python application rather than a container-first project, and dependency management is the usual friction. Container images exist and are the tidier path on a server.
Do not expose it to the internet. It executes model code and extensions, and it is not built to be a hardened public service.
License
Stable Diffusion WebUI is released under the AGPL-3.0 License.