head to head · open source
Open WebUI vs deepchat
Open WebUI has 157,575 GitHub stars, 22,923 forks, 294 open issues and last shipped yesterday. deepchat has 6,385 stars, 770 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Open WebUI leads on adoption by 2,368% (157,575 vs 6,385 stars). Open WebUI is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; deepchat is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Open WebUI has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, deepchat 12%. deepchat 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 | deepchat | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 158K | ★ 6.4K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 23K | ⑂ 770 |
| 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 deepchat if
- You want the deepchat feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and deepchat 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 deepchat
DeepChat Open Source Local First AI Agent Desktop Client DeepChat is an open source, local first AI agent desktop client with rich agent capabilities, designed around the Tape.systems philosophy, with support for MCP, Skills, ACP, and remote control integrations for messaging apps. 中文 / English / 日本語 ❤️ Sponsor Thanks to APIMart for sponsoring this project! APIMart is a low cost API platform for AI image & video generation — GPT Image 2 from $0.006/image, 160+ images per dollar. One async API covers both image and video: submit a task, get an ID, fetch results via polling or callback. Batch tens of thousands of…
read the full deepchat overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Open WebUI or deepchat more popular?
Open WebUI has 157,575 GitHub stars and deepchat has 6,385. Open WebUI has the larger community by that measure.
Are Open WebUI and deepchat free?
Both are open source. Open WebUI has no licence declared in this registry, and deepchat is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Open WebUI and deepchat?
Open WebUI is written in Python and deepchat in TypeScript. 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 deepchat?
Choose Open WebUI if you want the larger community (157,575 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose deepchat if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.