head to head · open source
Open WebUI vs kwant
Open WebUI has 158,599 GitHub stars, 23,060 forks, 294 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kwant has 534 stars, 52 forks, 25 open issues and last shipped today. Open WebUI leads on adoption by 29,600% (158,599 vs 534 stars). Open WebUI is written in Svelte under a custom or non-standard licence; kwant is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. Open WebUI has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, kwant 10%. kwant 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Open WebUI | kwant | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 159K | ★ 534 |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Svelte | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-13 | 2026-11-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 23K | ⑂ 52 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Open WebUI if
- You weight community size — 159K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Svelte
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kwant if
- You want the kwant feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and kwant 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 kwant
Your own team of AI bots that check each other’s work before saying “done”. Website · Docs · Features · Compare · Changelog · Discussions macOS: one app for Apple silicon and Intel · Linux x86 64 (beta): .deb or AppImage · A server: binary or Docker · All downloads Free and open source. A ⭐ helps others find kwant. kwant has no token. Official X account is @kwantbot . kwant gives you a team of bots that share chats, hand work to each other with an @mention and get it done on their own, on a schedule or while you're away. Each message goes to the bot that fits, and the reply says why. Work shows up as cards on a…
read the full kwant overview →
More in AI & Machine Learning
Related comparisons
More AI Interaction & Interfaces projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the AI Interaction & Interfaces field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Open WebUI or kwant more popular?
Open WebUI has 158,599 GitHub stars and kwant has 534. Open WebUI has the larger community by that measure.
Are Open WebUI and kwant free?
Both are open source. Open WebUI has no licence declared in this registry, and kwant is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Open WebUI and kwant?
Open WebUI is written in Svelte and kwant in Rust. 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 kwant?
Choose Open WebUI if you want the larger community (158,599 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose kwant if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.