Novelai is very worth the sub if you are trying to make different stuff with more specific scenarios and characters from scratch,of course if you just wanna make the classic city landscape and whatnot local can already do that, but it has been the case for so long already.
Also character ref and vibe transfer are goated functions so i do not really get the NovelAI slander gonna be honest.
It has made my life a lot easier and I barely have to edit stuff in pics nowadays because it's so advanced in prompt understanding (with it's own limits)