Overview
Open WebUI is a self-hosted web interface for chatting with large language models. It connects to local model runners like Ollama and to any OpenAI-compatible API, so you can point it at LMStudio, GroqCloud, Mistral, OpenRouter, and similar services. It is designed to run entirely offline if you want it to.
It is aimed at developers and teams who want to run their own chat front end instead of relying on a hosted product. On top of plain chatting it adds Retrieval Augmented Generation over your own documents, web search, image generation, voice and video calls, and granular user roles and permissions for multi-user setups.
As a chat UI, it sits between your models and your users: you bring the model backend, and Open WebUI handles the conversation interface, document handling, and access control. It installs through Docker, Kubernetes, or pip.
What it does
- Connects to Ollama and OpenAI-compatible APIs, with a customizable API URL for providers like LMStudio, GroqCloud, Mistral, and OpenRouter
- Local RAG over your own documents, with a choice of vector databases and content extraction engines; add files with the # command before a query
- Web search for RAG across 15+ providers (SearXNG, Brave, Tavily, DuckDuckGo, and more) and direct web browsing via # plus a URL
- Granular permissions, user groups, and role-based access control (RBAC) for secure multi-user deployments
- Image generation and editing through DALL-E, Gemini, ComfyUI, and AUTOMATIC1111
- Run several models in parallel in one conversation, with full Markdown and LaTeX rendering, voice/video calls, and a native Python function-calling tool
Getting started
Open WebUI installs through Docker (recommended) or pip. The example below assumes you already have a model backend such as Ollama running.
Run with Docker
Start the container and open the UI at http://localhost:3000. The --add-host flag lets the container reach a model runner on your host machine.
docker run -d -p 3000:8080 --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway -v open-webui:/app/backend/data --name open-webui --restart always ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:mainOr install with pip
If you prefer a Python install, install the package and start the server. It runs on http://localhost:8080 by default.
pip install open-webui
open-webui serveConnect a model and sign in
Open the URL in your browser, create the first account (which becomes the admin), then point Open WebUI at your Ollama instance or add an OpenAI-compatible API key in the settings.
Commands and code are distilled from the project's own documentation — always check the official repo for the latest.
When to use it
- Run a private, self-hosted ChatGPT-style interface over local Ollama models with no data leaving your machine
- Give a team a shared chat front end with user accounts, groups, and role-based permissions
- Build a document Q&A workspace by loading files and using the built-in RAG and web search
- Compare answers from several models side by side in a single conversation
How Open WebUI compares
Open WebUI alongside other open-source chat uis tools AI/TLDR tracks, ranked by GitHub stars.
| Tool | Stars | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Open WebUI | ★ 142k | Self-hosted chat interface for local and API-based LLMs |
| Lobe Chat | ★ 78.9k | An open-source chat UI with a plugin and agent marketplace, multi-model support, voice, vision, and one-click self-hosting. |
| AnythingLLM | ★ 61.8k | A desktop and self-hosted chat app focused on document Q&A and agents, letting you build private RAG workspaces over your own files and data sources. |
| Cherry Studio | ★ 47.5k | A cross-platform desktop chat client that connects to many cloud and local model providers and ships with hundreds of preset assistants and MCP support. |
| Chatbox | ★ 40.6k | A desktop and web chat client for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Ollama, and other models, with local message storage and multi-provider switching. |
| LibreChat | ★ 39.5k | A self-hostable ChatGPT-style chat app that unifies many AI providers and adds agents, MCP support, artifacts, a code interpreter, and multi-user authentication. |
| Onyx | ★ 30.4k | Onyx is a self-hostable AI chat platform that adds RAG, web search, custom agents, code execution, and deep research on top of any major LLM provider. |
| Vercel AI Chatbot | ★ 20.5k | An open-source Next.js starter template for building a full-featured AI chatbot with the Vercel AI SDK, auth, and multi-model routing. |