VAE Models

Encoder/decoder models.

What is VAE

VAE (Variational Autoencoder) encodes images to latent space and decodes back.

Popular VAE

SD 1.x VAE

VAE	Description
autoencoder_kl-f8	Standard SD 1.x
vae-ft-mse-840000-ema-pruned	Better quality

SDXL VAE

VAE	Description
sdxl-vae-fp16-fix	SDXL专用
sdxl-vae	Original

Other VAE

VAE	Use
vae-approx	Fast approximation
stabilityai/vae-fp16	Stability version

Download

SD 1.x

ComfyUI/models/vae/
  autoencoder_kl-f8.pt
  vae-ft-mse-840000-ema-pruned.safetensors

SDXL

ComfyUI/models/vae/
  sdxl-vae-fp16-fix.safetensors

Usage

Auto-select

Most checkpoints include VAE, auto-selected.

Manual Select

Node: VAELoader
Select: Your VAE

In Checkpoint

Some checkpoints embed VAE:

• No separate load needed
• May need external VAE for best quality

When to Use External VAE

Situation	Use External VAE
Colors off	Yes
Artifacts	Yes
Want better quality	Yes

Tips

1. Match model: Use VAE for your model type
2. Test quality: Compare with/without external VAE
3. SDXL: SDXL works better with external VAE

Next Steps

• Upscale Models - Resolution enhancement
• Custom Nodes - Extensions