Jan
Chatbots
Run open-source AI chatbots offline on your own computer.
practical-ossopen-sourceself-hosted
Free planView →
Open WebUI
A polished self-hosted ChatGPT-style interface for any model.
Free plan API Self-hosted Offline mode Teams
Toolglade’s take
Open WebUI is the most polished front end for Ollama and a great home-lab AI portal, with strong RAG and multi-user features. It is best for individuals and small teams self-hosting local models. Read the license first if you are a business: the branding clause means it is not strict OSS, and larger deployments that want to rebrand need permission or an enterprise license, so license-purists should look at LibreChat instead.
Should you use Open WebUI?
- Biggest strength
- Polished, feature-rich ChatGPT-style UI and the most popular front end for Ollama
- Biggest weakness
- Source-available, not strict open source: a branding clause restricts removing Open WebUI branding above 50 users
- Pricing
- Free plan
Facts & pricing last checked October 2026. How we review
About Open WebUI
Open WebUI is a self-hosted web interface for chatting with local or any OpenAI-compatible models. It gives individuals and teams a private, good-looking ChatGPT alternative they fully control. Note: it uses a source-available license with a branding clause, not a strict open-source license.
Open WebUI is a self-hosted, ChatGPT-style interface for chatting with AI models in your browser. It is best known as the default front end for Ollama, letting you run open models locally, but it also talks to any OpenAI-compatible API, so you can mix local and cloud models. The interface supports multiple users, conversation history, document and web retrieval (RAG), image generation hooks, and a plugin system. One important caveat: despite being on GitHub and free to use, Open WebUI is source-available rather than strictly open source. Its license is based on BSD-3 but adds a clause that forbids removing or altering the Open WebUI branding unless your deployment has 50 or fewer users in a 30-day window, or you obtain written permission or an enterprise license. It is widely used by self-hosters and teams wanting a local AI portal.
Weighing your options?See how Open WebUI compares to the alternatives.
Pros & cons
Pros
- Polished, feature-rich ChatGPT-style UI and the most popular front end for Ollama
- Works with local models and any OpenAI-compatible API, mixing both freely
- Built-in multi-user accounts, chat history, RAG, and a plugin/function system
- Actively and rapidly developed with frequent releases
- Free to self-host, and small deployments (<=50 users) can rebrand freely
Cons
- Source-available, not strict open source: a branding clause restricts removing Open WebUI branding above 50 users
- Larger or commercial deployments may need written permission or an enterprise license
- Like all front ends, it needs you to supply models (e.g. Ollama) or API keys
- Feature breadth and rapid changes can make setup and upgrades fiddly
Key features
Self-hosted
Offline mode
API
Team collaboration
Best For
teams, privacy
Input types
text
Output types
text
Compare key features
View all alternatives →Feature
Open WebUI
Jan
Gemma
Pricing
Free
Free
Free
Free plan
Yes
Yes
Yes
Free trial
No
No
No
API
Yes
Yes
Yes
Self-hosted
Yes
Yes
Yes
Team support
Yes
—
No
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