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Open WebUI

The most complete self hosted chat front end, with a licence to read

Open WebUI is a self hosted chat interface that works against local models through Ollama and against any OpenAI compatible API. It covers the things a paid chat subscription gives you: conversation history, documents, multiple users, model switching and a plugin layer.

Free tierModified BSD-3, with branding conditionsPythonSelf hostable

The most finished option on this shelf

It is the closest open source equivalent to a commercial chat product. User accounts and permissions, retrieval over your own documents, web search, image generation and a pipeline system for custom processing all ship in the box rather than as a plan.

That completeness is why it is the usual answer for a team that wants one internal chat interface over whichever models they have access to, local or hosted.

The licence changed, and it matters

This is no longer a plain permissive project. The licence adds conditions around removing or altering the project's branding, which means the common plan of white labelling it for a client or an internal product is exactly the case it restricts, unless you qualify for an exemption or buy a licence.

For personal use and ordinary internal deployment this changes nothing. If you intend to ship it under your own brand, read the licence file first rather than assuming the permissive terms it used to carry.

Reach for it when

  • you want one internal chat interface over several model providers
  • you need conversation history and documents kept on your own infrastructure
  • you are running local models and want a real interface for them

Watch out for

  • the licence restricts removing the project's branding, so white labelling it needs a licence or an exemption
  • it is a substantial application to host, not a single binary, and the feature surface grows quickly
  • retrieval over your documents needs tuning before it is genuinely useful
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