head to head · open source
Open WebUI vs kotaemon
Open WebUI has 152,394 GitHub stars, 22,296 forks, 294 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kotaemon has 25,769 stars, 2,156 forks, 247 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Open WebUI leads on adoption by 491% (152,394 vs 25,769 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 | ★ 152K | ★ 26K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-07-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 22K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Open WebUI if
- You weight community size — 152K 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 is a self hosted, open source AI interface that unifies access to local and cloud based large language models. It runs entirely in a web browser and supports Ollama for local model hosting alongside any OpenAI compatible API, including services like LMStudio, GroqCloud, Mistral, and OpenRouter. Built in Python, it functions as a drop in replacement for proprietary AI platforms, giving users full control over their model infrastructure and data.
read the full Open WebUI overview →
About kotaemon
kotaemon is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed Python project that provides a clean and customizable retrieval augmented generation (RAG) UI for chatting with documents. It sits in the AI and machine learning ecosystem, specifically under AI interaction and interfaces, and is built on Gradio so that the interface itself can be extended or modified. The README frames the project as serving two distinct audiences at once: end users who want to do question answering over their own files, and developers who want to build their own RAG pipeline on top of the framework.
read the full kotaemon overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Open WebUI or kotaemon more popular?
Open WebUI has 152,394 GitHub stars and kotaemon has 25,769. 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 (152,394 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.