Open WebUI: a self-hosted front-end for your own models

What is Open WebUI?

Open WebUI is the interface layer for models you already run. Ollama gives you a model on your machine and a command line; this gives that model a proper chat application, with conversation history, document handling and multi-user accounts, all hosted on your own hardware. It is explicitly built to run entirely offline.

At a glance

Product identity

Pricing

The self-hosted platform is free. There is a separate enterprise offering with custom branding and an SLA, referenced in the documentation without a published price, which ClickTug records as a not-published price on that tier rather than treating the whole product as unpriced. What you install costs nothing.

The software you install is the free option and it is the whole platform, not a reduced edition. The costs that exist are yours rather than the project's: hardware to run it on, and whatever a remote provider charges if you connect one instead of a local model.

Refunds: Nothing is sold for the self-hosted version, so no refund terms apply to it.

Platforms

Anywhere you can run it: Docker, pip, uv, or a native desktop application, on Windows, macOS or Linux. Once running it is reached through a browser, so any device on your network can use it without installing anything itself.

• Windows
• macOS
• Linux
• Web

Feature matrix

Absence of evidence is not recorded as absence of a feature. Anything that needs an account to confirm is marked not tested rather than "no".

Privacy and data

There is no vendor in the path. The platform is self-hosted and built to run entirely offline, so conversations sit in your own storage and retention is whatever you configure. That also means the honest answer about training is no: nothing is transmitted to anyone who could train on it. The exception is the standard one for a front-end, and it is your decision: connect a remote provider and your text reaches that company under their terms rather than staying with you.

Privacy disclosure

What the vendor lets you know before paying

This measures disclosure, not quality. A good product can document nothing, and that is worth knowing separately from whether it is any good.

Content policy and safety

Open WebUI documents its output filtering asno documented output filter, and its age policy as none stated.

Open WebUI does not offer clothing removal from photographs of real people. ClickTug does not list tools that do. Its stated position on the likeness of real people is that documented consent is required.

What the vendor prohibits

• Nothing is enforced by the software, which ships no model of its own
• What a session refuses belongs to the model or provider you connected

General-purpose infrastructure rather than an adult product, and a front-end rather than a model. Listed for the local cluster: the rules that bind you are those of whatever you connect it to.

Open WebUI runs on your own hardware, so it receives none of what you generate. ClickTug does not require a minor safety policy or an acceptable use policy from a tool that never receives user content, because there would be nothing for such a policy to govern. Any optional hosted tier is a separate service under its own terms.

ClickTug content policy

ClickTug verdict

The self-hosted answer for more than one person. Open WebUI puts a full chat application in front of Ollama or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, with history, documents and multi-user accounts, and is explicitly built to run entirely offline on your own infrastructure. The privacy position is architectural rather than promised: no vendor is in the path, so there is nothing to retain and nobody to trust. The cost is that you are the administrator, and the software enforces nothing, since it ships no model.

Hands on

How Open WebUI compares

Every figure on the right is computed across the 37 tools ClickTug currently tracks, at the moment this page was built. They are facts about this catalogue rather than about the market, and they move as it grows.

Quick answers about Open WebUI

Generated from the same records as the tables above, so an answer here cannot contradict a figure there. Questions only appear when the answer says something specific to this product.

Is Open WebUI free?

There is a free tier. The full self-hosted platform. What is not published is the price of the separate enterprise offering.

How much does Open WebUI cost?

No price is published. The self-hosted platform is free. Enterprise plans offering custom branding and an SLA are referenced separately and are not priced publicly, which is a fact about the commercial tier rather than about the software you install.

Does Open WebUI require a credit card to start?

No card is required to reach the free layer. One is needed for any paid plan.

Does Open WebUI offer refunds?

Nothing is sold for the self-hosted version, so no refund terms apply to it.

Does Open WebUI have an app?

No. It runs in a web browser only, which is common for adult products because both app stores restrict them.

Can Open WebUI run locally?

Yes. It runs models on your own hardware, so prompts and output never leave the machine and the retention question does not arise.

Does Open WebUI train on my conversations?

The vendor states it does not use user content to train models. That is a written commitment, and rarer in this category than it should be.

Can I delete my Open WebUI account?

Yes, through a control in the account rather than by asking support.

Can I use Open WebUI without an account?

Yes. The service can be reached without registering, which almost nothing else in this directory permits.

Is Open WebUI actually uncensored?

ClickTug records no documented output filter, which is a different claim from having no rules: its terms still prohibit a specific list of conduct, set out above.

What company owns Open WebUI, and where?

Open WebUI project, Not applicable for the self-hosted software. Publishing an identifiable counterparty is worth noting: several tools in this directory name no company at all.