Hollama vs Open WebUI
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted ai chat uis options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Open WebUI
Feature-rich self-hosted web interface for local LLMs
| Feature | Hollama | Open WebUI |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | ≈5-minute setup |
| Health score | 44 · Fair | 100 · Excellent |
| Category | AI Chat UIs | AI Chat UIs |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | TypeScript | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 2,048 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,186 | ★ 152,950 |
| First released | 2024 | 2023 |
| Replaces | ChatGPT | ChatGPT, Poe |
What are Hollama and Open WebUI?
Hollama
Hollama is a minimal, fast web interface for chatting with Ollama and OpenAI-compatible models. It stores everything in the browser and requires no server-side database.
- Minimal interface
- Browser-side storage
- No database required
- Ollama and OpenAI support
Open WebUI
Open WebUI is an extensible, offline-capable web interface for interacting with local and remote LLMs. It supports Ollama and any OpenAI-compatible API, with chat history, RAG document uploads, multi-user accounts, and a plugin pipeline system.
- Polished ChatGPT-style UI
- Built-in RAG and web search
- Multi-user with roles
- Model and prompt management
Hollama vs Open WebUI: key differences
Hollama is written in TypeScript, while Open WebUI is built with Python. Licensing differs — MIT for Hollama versus BSD-3-Clause for Open WebUI. Hollama is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for Open WebUI. Open WebUI has the considerably larger community, at 152,950 GitHub stars versus 1,186.
Why pick each one
Choose Hollama if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.2k GitHub stars)
Choose Open WebUI if…
- Very active development
- Works with many backends
Watch out for
- Feature set can feel overwhelming
Frequently asked questions
Is Hollama 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 Hollama and Open WebUI free and open-source?
Yes. Hollama is licensed under MIT and Open WebUI under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Hollama and Open WebUI with Docker?
Hollama: yes. Open WebUI: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Hollama or Open WebUI?
Hollama has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for Open WebUI. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.