head to head · open source
Open WebUI vs kotaemon
Open WebUI has 157,575 GitHub stars, 22,923 forks, 294 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kotaemon has 25,849 stars, 2,164 forks, 247 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Open WebUI leads on adoption by 510% (157,575 vs 25,849 stars). Open WebUI is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; kotaemon is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Open WebUI has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, kotaemon 8%. Open WebUI was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (llms, rag), 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 | kotaemon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 158K | ★ 26K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-07-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 23K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| 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 kotaemon if
- You want the kotaemon feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and kotaemon 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 kotaemon
kotaemon An open source clean & customizable RAG UI for chatting with your documents. Built with both end users and developers in mind. Live Demo 1 Live Demo 2 Online Install Colab Notebook (Local RAG) User Guide Developer Guide Feedback Contact Introduction This project serves as a functional RAG UI for both end users who want to do QA on their documents and developers who want to build their own RAG pipeline. For end users Clean & Minimalistic UI : A user friendly interface for RAG based QA. Support for Various LLMs : Compatible with LLM API providers (OpenAI, AzureOpenAI, Cohere, etc.) and local LLMs (via…
read the full kotaemon overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Open WebUI or kotaemon more popular?
Open WebUI has 157,575 GitHub stars and kotaemon has 25,849. Open WebUI has the larger community by that measure.
Are Open WebUI and kotaemon free?
Both are open source. Open WebUI has no licence declared in this registry, and kotaemon is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Open WebUI and kotaemon?
Open WebUI is written in Python and kotaemon in Python. 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 kotaemon?
Choose Open WebUI if you want the larger community (157,575 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose kotaemon if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.