Open WebUI: your own AI chat interface, fully offline
Point it at a local model or any OpenAI-compatible API and get a full chat interface that never sends your conversations anywhere.
Open WebUI is a self-hosted, source-available AI interface that runs fully offline and gives you a complete chat environment on your own machine. It connects to Ollama for local models and to any OpenAI-compatible API, which includes LM Studio, Groq, Mistral, OpenRouter and vLLM, so you can mix local and hosted models behind one interface. It includes document chat, persistent memory, tools, agents, role-based access control and a plugin system, and installs with a single pip command or via Docker. It is free to self-host under the Open WebUI License, which is source-available rather than a standard open-source licence.
What you get
- A full chat interface that runs entirely on your own hardware
- Works with Ollama locally and any OpenAI-compatible API remotely
- Document chat, memory, tools and agents built in, not bolted on
- Role-based access control, so a small team can share one instance
- Conversations that never leave the machine you run it on
Who this is not for
Running good local models needs real hardware, particularly RAM and ideally a GPU. If you only ever call hosted APIs and do not care where the interface runs, you are adding maintenance for little gain.
Credit
Created by Open WebUI· Source-available, free to self-host
ProfitizeOS did not build this and does not host it. You get a link straight to the original.
Free. Two fields, then straight to the resource and setup guide.
Common questions
Is Open WebUI free?
It is free to self-host. The licence is the Open WebUI License, which is source-available rather than a standard open-source licence such as MIT, so check the branding and redistribution terms before deploying it as a product for clients.
Do I need Ollama?
No. Ollama is the easiest route to local models, but Open WebUI works with any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so you can run it purely against hosted APIs.
Does it really work offline?
Yes, provided the models are local. With Ollama and no external connections configured, nothing leaves your machine.
Can a team use one instance?
Yes. It has role-based access control and user management, which is the usual reason agencies run one internal instance instead of per-person subscriptions.
Read first
More on this topic: AI Automation