head to head · open source
Open WebUI vs aidea
Open WebUI has 157,575 GitHub stars, 22,923 forks, 294 open issues and last shipped yesterday. aidea has 6,935 stars, 1,041 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. Open WebUI leads on adoption by 2,172% (157,575 vs 6,935 stars). Open WebUI is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; aidea is written in Dart under MIT. Open WebUI has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, aidea 15%. Open WebUI was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Open WebUI | aidea | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 158K | ★ 6.9K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Dart |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-03-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 23K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Open WebUI if
- You weight community size — 158K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick aidea if
- You want the aidea feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You evaluated both and aidea fits your workflow better
About Open WebUI
Open WebUI 👋 Open WebUI is a home for AI , a self hosted AI platform that's extensible , feature rich , user friendly, and built to run entirely offline . With support for Ollama and OpenAI compatible APIs , it gives you a powerful, provider agnostic interface for both local and cloud based models. Passionate about open source AI? Join our team → [!TIP] Looking for an Enterprise Plan? – Speak with Our Sales Team Today! For more information, be sure to check out our Open WebUI Documentation. Key Features of Open WebUI ⭐ 🚀 Effortless Setup : Install seamlessly via pip, uv, Docker, or Kubernetes (kubectl…
read the full Open WebUI overview →
About aidea
AIdea AI Chat, Collaboration & Image Generation English 中文 An APP that integrates mainstream large language models and image generation models, built with Flutter, with fully open source code. Download & Try: Open Source Repositories: Client: Server: Docker Deployment: Development & Build Environment The default branch main is the v2 version, currently under active development. If you need to self host, please switch to the v1.x branch. To set up a development environment for compiling and packaging the APP, you can refer to the following articles (more articles will be added over time): AIdea Development…
read the full aidea overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Open WebUI or aidea more popular?
Open WebUI has 157,575 GitHub stars and aidea has 6,935. Open WebUI has the larger community by that measure.
Are Open WebUI and aidea free?
Both are open source. Open WebUI has no licence declared in this registry, and aidea is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Open WebUI and aidea?
Open WebUI is written in Python and aidea in Dart. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Open WebUI or aidea?
Choose Open WebUI if you want the larger community (157,575 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose aidea if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.