depthflow comparison 3d-photo
DepthFlow online: a browser alternative with no install
DepthFlow is open source and runs on your own machine with Python. If you searched for DepthFlow online, here is what exists, what's unofficial, and what runs in a browser.
Aman Jha·September 25, 2026·4 min read
There's no official DepthFlow online. DepthFlow is free, open-source software that runs on your own computer, and its own README warns that “any paid apps, websites, or ports claiming to be official are fake”. If you want the same 2.5D parallax effect in a browser, choose by what you need at the end: DepthFlow for video files, Gifsy for a scene people can drag on a website.
The short answer
Choose DepthFlow if you want free, unlimited, watermark-free parallax videos, you're comfortable installing a Python package, and you have a decent graphics card. It renders at whatever resolution and frame rate you ask for.
Choose Gifsy if you want nothing to install, or the result has to live on a website as something visitors can move rather than a video they watch.
Everything about DepthFlow below comes from its own README and PyPI page, checked on 25 September 2026. We make Gifsy, so read the Gifsy parts with that in mind.
What DepthFlow is
DepthFlow describes itself as a “Free and Open Source image-to-video converter that turns pictures into awesome 3D parallax animations”. You give it a photo, it estimates depth with an external depth model, and it renders a camera move through the scene with a ray-marching shader. The output is a video.
- Licence: AGPL-3.0, open source.
- Price: free, “no watermarks, unlimited usage”, and commercial use is encouraged.
- Output: video at any resolution and frame rate, with supersampling; the README quotes up to 8K at 50 fps on an RTX 3060-class GPU.
- Install: a Python package,
depthflowon PyPI, which needs Python 3.10 or newer. - Automation: built for scripting, so it suits batches of images.
It's a serious piece of work. If you make parallax clips for YouTube, stock footage or social posts every week, it's hard to beat on price or quality.
Is there a DepthFlow online?
Not an official one. The README is blunt: DepthFlow “is free and runs locally”, and the author hosts his projects “exclusively on the tremeschin.com domain”. So a site offering DepthFlow in the browser, especially one charging for it, isn't the project. Some of those sites may still work, but they aren't run by DepthFlow's author, and you'd be uploading your photos to someone you know nothing about.
If what you want is the effect without installing anything, you're looking for a browser tool, not DepthFlow. That's where the comparison below comes in.
DepthFlow vs Gifsy
| DepthFlow | Gifsy | |
|---|---|---|
| Runs where | Your computer | Your browser |
| Install | Python 3.10+ and the depthflow package | Nothing |
| Main output | Video file | Interactive scene with an iframe embed |
| Also exports | Video at any resolution and fps | GIF, WebM or PNG of the scene |
| Price | Free | Free and unlimited with a free account |
| Watermark | None | Small badge on free embeds; removed with any credit pack |
| Commercial use | Encouraged (AGPL-3.0) | Allowed |
| Batch / scripting | Yes | No, one photo at a time |
| Where the photo goes | Stays on your machine | Stays in the browser while the scene is made; uploaded when you publish |
The honest summary: DepthFlow wins on resolution, automation and badge-free output at no cost. Gifsy wins on zero setup and on the one output DepthFlow doesn't make, a scene a visitor can move.
Which one to pick
You're making videos
Use DepthFlow. A social clip or a stock-footage loop is a video, and DepthFlow renders better video than any browser tool can, for free. If you don't want to install it, the browser video tools compared on our Immersity AI alternatives page are the next stop.
You're building a website
A video in a hero section plays the same way for everyone. An interactive scene answers the visitor's pointer, which is the point of the effect on a site. Gifsy gives you that scene as an iframe for Webflow, Framer, WordPress or plain HTML; see how to embed a 3D photo.
You only need the depth map
If you're feeding a depth map to DepthFlow, Blender or a compositor, Gifsy's depth map generator makes one in the browser for free, as an 8-bit or 16-bit PNG, with no account.
Running DepthFlow yourself
DepthFlow is a Python package. With Python 3.10 or newer installed:
pip install depthflowFrom there, follow the getting-started steps in its documentation at tremeschin.com, which is the only official source. Run it on a machine with a capable graphics card if you want fast renders.
FAQ
Is there an official DepthFlow website where I can use it online?
No. DepthFlow's README says it "is free and runs locally" and that "any paid apps, websites, or ports claiming to be official are fake". The author hosts his projects only on tremeschin.com, and the documentation there is documentation, not an online converter.
Is DepthFlow free?
Yes. It's open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence, with no watermarks and no usage limit, and its README says commercial use is encouraged.
Do I need a GPU to run DepthFlow?
It renders with a GLSL shader, and its README quotes up to 8K at 50 fps on an RTX 3060-class card. A capable graphics card is what makes it fast; check its documentation for current system requirements before you install.
Can DepthFlow make an interactive embed for a website?
No. DepthFlow is an image-to-video converter: it renders video files. For a scene visitors can move on your own site, you need a tool that hosts an interactive viewer, such as Gifsy.
Is Gifsy free?
Yes. 3D photos on Gifsy are free and unlimited with a free account, including publishing and embedding, and commercial use is allowed. Free embeds carry a small Gifsy badge; buying any 3D model credit pack (from $9) removes it from all your embeds.
Can I use DepthFlow in ComfyUI?
There are community-made ComfyUI nodes for it (akatz-ai/ComfyUI-Depthflow-Nodes on GitHub). They're not the official project, but they run on your own machine like DepthFlow itself.
Sources and update log
- DepthFlow README, github.com/BrokenSource/DepthFlow, read 25 September 2026.
- PyPI, pypi.org/project/depthflow (version 1.0.1, Python 3.10+, AGPL-3.0), read 25 September 2026.
- 25 September 2026: first published.
- 12 October 2026: badge can now be removed with any credit pack.
Try the 3D parallax photo maker. Related: what a 2.5D parallax effect is and every 3D photo maker compared.