Open WebUI

Free

openwebui.com

Extensible, self-hosted web interface for LLMs offering multi-model chat, web search integration, and document RAG pipelines.

About Open WebUI

Open WebUI (formerly Ollama WebUI) is a feature-rich, open-source self-hosted web interface designed for interacting with local and remote large language models. Built to deliver a user experience comparable to commercial chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude while remaining 100% self-hosted, Open WebUI has emerged as the premier web frontend for Ollama, vLLM, and OpenAI-compatible API backends.

The platform provides an extensive suite of advanced capabilities, including native Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) that allows users to upload documents (PDFs, text, markdown) and chat with their contents locally. Open WebUI also features real-time web search integration (via DuckDuckGo, SearXNG, or Google), voice interaction with text-to-speech and speech-to-text, and image generation pipelines via Automatic1111 and ComfyUI.

Open WebUI is completely free and open-source software under the MIT license, distributed primarily as a lightweight Docker container that deploys in seconds. It supports granular multi-user role-based access control, making it ideal for self-hosters, universities, and enterprise private AI deployments.

Key Features

Core capabilities and technical highlights of Open WebUI

Full-featured chat interface supporting markdown formatting, LaTeX math formulas, and code syntax highlighting.

Built-in Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) engine indexing uploaded documents for contextual semantic search.

Multi-user management system featuring role-based access control (RBAC), chat sharing, and admin dashboards.

Extensive tool and function calling support enabling web search, image generation, and custom Python functions.

Popular Use Cases

How teams, developers, and creators get value from Open WebUI

1Deploy a private, browser-accessible chat portal for your organization powered by local Ollama models.

2Chat with uploaded PDF documents, research papers, and technical manuals using built-in document RAG pipelines.

3Augment local model responses with live web search results using integrated SearXNG or DuckDuckGo connectors.

4Manage user accounts, model access permissions, and conversation histories across corporate departments.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions and answers regarding Open WebUI

Is Open WebUI free?

Yes, Open WebUI is 100% free and open-source software released under the MIT license with zero commercial restrictions.

How is Open WebUI installed?

Open WebUI is primarily deployed using a single Docker command, running locally on your computer or deployed to a private cloud server.

Does Open WebUI require Ollama?

While originally built for Ollama, Open WebUI can connect to any OpenAI-compatible API endpoint, including vLLM, LocalAI, and cloud providers.

Can Open WebUI search the web?

Yes, Open WebUI features built-in web search integration with providers like DuckDuckGo, SearXNG, Google, and Bing to bring live information into chats.

Does Open WebUI support document uploads (RAG)?

Yes, users can drag and drop documents into chats, and Open WebUI automatically chunks, embeds, and retrieves relevant passages.