[HN Gopher] OSS Alternative to Open WebUI - ChatGPT-Like UI, API...
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OSS Alternative to Open WebUI - ChatGPT-Like UI, API and CLI
Author : mythz
Score : 78 points
Date : 2025-11-03 12:05 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| kosolam wrote:
| Isn't openwebui also oss?
| mythz wrote:
| They've switched to a custom license to inhibit competitive
| forks [1], in their own words [2]:
|
| [1]
| https://www.reddit.com/r/opensource/comments/1kfhkal/open_we...
|
| [2] https://docs.openwebui.com/license/
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| Out of interest: They talk a lot about how they think/hope
| their license is not contradictory. Has anybody with legal
| expertise verified this?
|
| Open-ish source is one thing, but an untested custom license
| is an issue in itself.
| falcor84 wrote:
| Interesting. They mention the following as some of their
| reasoning for this license:
|
| > They market these rebranded solutions in commercial
| offerings to customers and organizations, sometimes at a
| massive markup.
|
| > In some cases, they even go further by intentionally
| obscuring the fact that Open WebUI is available for free, so
| that they can charge unsuspecting users outrageous fees for
| something that should be accessible to everyone.
|
| But that makes me think - if they really cared about this
| being free, they could have dealt with it by just using
| AGPLv3 coupled with enforcing their trademark, right?
| mythz wrote:
| Yeah if they only cared about misuse of their brand they
| need only enforce their trademark. But they're also arguing
| the other way and don't want anyone to strip their brand
| from their forks either:
|
| > bad actors taking our work, stripping the branding,
| selling it as their own, and giving nothing back.
|
| Contradicting their original BSD License which welcomes
| anyone freely using, sharing and building on OSS software,
| even commercial forks. So now its a custom BSD-based
| license but with the aim of preventing competitive forks.
| threecheese wrote:
| Realistically, how does an open source project enforce a
| trademark, when that carries a high cost (lawyers)?
|
| Said differently, which option (sue for trademark
| infringement, or for license violation) has a lower cost?
| (including damages)
| remix2000 wrote:
| How is their restriction any less permissive than other OSI-
| approved licenses' attribution clauses?
| ForHackernews wrote:
| They could have just used a GPL license.
| brazukadev wrote:
| Hustlers will always hustle
| mythz wrote:
| It would be good to share other OSS alternatives here, some
| alternatives I've seen mentioned in Reddit threads:
| - jan.ai - librechat.ai - AnythingLLM
| bdhtu wrote:
| GitHub links:
|
| - https://github.com/janhq/jan
|
| - https://github.com/danny-avila/LibreChat
|
| - https://github.com/Mintplex-Labs/anything-llm
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Witsy is very good.
|
| * https://github.com/nbonamy/witsy
|
| They don't really do a good job describing the features, but
| you can use it for any OpenAI compatible local API as well
| (llama.cpp, koboldcpp, etc).
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| https://github.com/agent0ai/agent-zero
|
| I'm leaning towards this one myself but I'm still early in
| researching alternatives.
| randomtoast wrote:
| I hoped that someone would fork OpenWebUI before the license
| change an maintain a OSS Version. Like Valkey1 is the OSS Fork of
| Redis and OpenSearch2 is the OSS Fork of ElasticSearch.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/valkey-io/valkey
|
| [2]: https://github.com/opensearch-project/OpenSearch
| evv wrote:
| It is honestly ridiculous that "Open WebUI" made it past the US
| trademark office.
|
| https://www.trademarkia.com/open-webui-99027970
|
| If somebody forks this project, I dare you to name it "Open
| Open Web UI". If they threaten you, just rename to "Open
| WebAI", "Open UI Web", and other permutations, until their
| legal budget runs dry.
|
| Clearly this company is following OpenAI's playbook- start with
| lofty OSS ideals, put "open" in your name, then fall down a
| slippery slope.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| OpenWebUI and similar ChatGPT-lite interfaces are a bad UI/UX for
| LLMs. "Normies" should not be using local models and those who
| want local models _should_ be exposed to the settings /complexity
| that projects like oobabooga/sillytavern/comfyUI force a user to
| educate themselves about (i.e. LLM sampler settings, chat
| templates, etc). It's telling that the best AI generated content
| is made by people using these prosumer style projects, and not
| using simplified trash like OpenWebUI.
|
| The proliferation of bad UI in consumption of AI systems has done
| unfathomable damage to discoverability of LLM features,
| especially new innovations in LLMs like far better sampling
| algorithms (i.e. min_p). Users are massively harmed by the
| features they don't know about and wish they were using but
| don't/can't because they are shepherded into the most brain-dead
| simple UI possible.
| CrackerNews wrote:
| If we had a society of actual engineers and hackers, sure.
|
| However, LLMs for the vast majority of people are simple
| chatbot oracles. The people paying exorbinant wealth in
| investments are aiming for essentially the Apple of AI where it
| magically just works and creates a new market to redefine the
| paradigm.
|
| LLMs are yet again another cyclical cycle where ideas influence
| material reality and vice versa. Magic is seen to be worth more
| than the wizard and his tools behind the curtain. The market is
| hoping that the masses don't find out about the wizard and his
| tools, so the illusion can continue to live and provide the
| basis for dreams.
|
| Open WebUI also lets you tweak those parameters, BTW.
| asnyder wrote:
| How does this compare to the already established open source
| solutions such as Chatbox (https://github.com/chatboxai/chatbox),
| or Lobechat (https://github.com/lobehub/lobe-chat)?
|
| Been using both, like Chatbox for how snappy it is, but is local
| only, vs Lobechat which allows you to setup centralized host to
| have shared host across clients but feels a bit clunkier.
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| One of the biggest differences I noticed off the bat is llms
| includes prompt caching which I'm not sure I've seen in any
| other self hosted UI options
| asnyder wrote:
| I see Lobe and Chatbox both have prompt caching toggles, are
| you referring to something else?
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| Where do you see that? I can't seem to find it in the web
| or desktop apps for lobechat.
|
| EDIT: I also don't see it in Chatbox
| asnyder wrote:
| I've mistakenly given Chatbox a new feature, sorry :). In
| LobeChat, after you select a particular model, it enables a
| mini-settings menu next to the model that lets you set
| caching, deep thinking, and thinking token consumption.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| I've always thought it was incredibly _rude_ to call this project
| something as incredibly generic as "Open WebUI". For one it's
| impossible to find documentation because it's so generic as tl be
| utterly meaningless, and also you're intentionally confusing any
| and all open web UI projects past and future.
|
| Not to mention it's just janky and hard to work with. And of
| course every bit of the official documentation is LLM slop. The
| only way I've been able to navigate is to use another LLM to tell
| me what these settings are for. Said LLM, having ingested the LLM
| slop documentation, also produces garbage that's barely correct.
|
| It's a bad project.
| rubymamis wrote:
| I've created a native, cross-platform ollama client in Qt C++
| called Vox (https://get-vox.com). For those interested, you can
| join the waitlist.
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(page generated 2025-11-03 23:01 UTC)