AI Chat UIs

Last reviewed Aug 26, 2026 · 436 words

None of these apps run models. An AI chat UI is a frontend that talks to an inference backend — Ollama on your own box, or any OpenAI-compatible API — and the whole category fits in 256 MB to 2 GB of RAM because the heavy lifting happens elsewhere. That makes the choice cheap to get wrong and cheap to redo, but three axes still separate the twelve options meaningfully.

How to choose a chat frontend

Count your users first. Single-user tools like NextChat (MIT, 512 MB, 88,653 stars) are lighter and simpler, but the moment a second person wants an account you need real multi-user support — separate histories, roles, and authentication. Second, price in the database: some frontends are one self-contained container, while LibreChat needs MongoDB and the heavier frameworks want Postgres, which turns a five-minute deploy into a small stack you now operate. Third, check backend breadth against what you actually run: everything here speaks the OpenAI-compatible protocol, but integration depth with Ollama specifically — model pulling, RAG over your documents, web search — varies a lot.

Where to start

Open WebUI (BSD-3-Clause, 149,927 stars, 2 GB) is the category's center of gravity: a polished ChatGPT-style interface with multi-user roles, built-in RAG document uploads, and a plugin pipeline system, in one container. Two catalogue gotchas: the first account created becomes the admin, so register before you share the URL, and if Ollama runs on the host rather than in Docker you need --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway and OLLAMA_BASE_URL pointed at it. LibreChat (MIT) wins for teams: OAuth and LDAP login, agents, and the widest multi-provider switching, worth its MongoDB dependency. NextChat wins when it is just you and an API key — it even ships desktop and mobile builds.

Stars age faster than software here

ChatBot UI still shows 33,340 stars and is no longer actively maintained — this category moved so fast in 2023–2024 that several early leaders are effectively frozen. Before deploying anything here, check the last commit date, not the star count; a chat UI that stopped tracking provider API changes degrades within months.

What I'd do

Open WebUI, pointed at Ollama, first account claimed by you. It is the default pairing for good reasons: single container, active development, and it grows from solo chat to a multi-user household service without a migration. Pick NextChat instead only if you are certain it stays single-user, and LibreChat when a team and SSO enter the picture.