head to head · open source
Open WebUI vs botman
Open WebUI has 157,498 GitHub stars, 22,901 forks, 294 open issues and last shipped yesterday. botman has 6,147 stars, 813 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Open WebUI leads on adoption by 2,462% (157,498 vs 6,147 stars). Open WebUI is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; botman is written in PHP under MIT. Open WebUI has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, botman 13%. Open WebUI was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | botman | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 157K | ★ 6.1K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Python | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-04-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 23K | ⑂ 813 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Open WebUI if
- You weight community size — 157K 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 botman if
- You want the botman feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and botman 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 botman
BotMan If you want to learn how to create reusable PHP packages yourself, take a look at my upcoming PHP Package Development video course. About BotMan BotMan is a framework agnostic PHP library that is designed to simplify the task of developing innovative bots for multiple messaging platforms, including Slack, Telegram, Microsoft Bot Framework, Nexmo, HipChat, Facebook Messenger and WeChat. If you want to learn how to create reusable PHP packages yourself, take a look at my upcoming PHP Package Development video course. Documentation You can find the BotMan documentation at Stand Alone Configuration If you are…
read the full botman overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Open WebUI or botman more popular?
Open WebUI has 157,498 GitHub stars and botman has 6,147. Open WebUI has the larger community by that measure.
Are Open WebUI and botman free?
Both are open source. Open WebUI has no licence declared in this registry, and botman is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Open WebUI and botman?
Open WebUI is written in Python and botman in PHP. 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 botman?
Choose Open WebUI if you want the larger community (157,498 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose botman if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.