SHSelfHostIndex

Jan vs Open WebUI

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
JA Jan Open-source offline ChatGPT alternative for the desktop VS OP Open WebUI Feature-rich self-hosted web interface for local LLMs
FeatureJanOpen WebUI
CategoryLocal LLM RunnersAI Chat UIs
LicenseAGPL-3.0BSD-3-Clause
LanguageTypeScriptPython
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM8,192 MB2,048 MB
Deploymentbinary, bare-metaldocker, kubernetes, helm
GitHub stars★ 43,899★ 148,193
First released20232023
ReplacesChatGPTChatGPT, Poe

Why pick each one

Choose Jan if…

  • Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Mature project with 43.9k GitHub stars
  • Written in TypeScript
Jan details

Choose Open WebUI if…

  • Very active development
  • Works with many backends
Open WebUI details

Frequently asked questions

Is Jan or Open WebUI better?

Neither is universally better. Open WebUI has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Jan and Open WebUI free and open-source?

Yes. Jan is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Open WebUI under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Jan and Open WebUI with Docker?

Jan: check the project docs for container support. Open WebUI: yes.

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