head to head · open source
Open WebUI vs sponge
Open WebUI has 157,575 GitHub stars, 22,923 forks, 294 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sponge has 2,869 stars, 270 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. Open WebUI leads on adoption by 5,392% (157,575 vs 2,869 stars). Open WebUI is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; sponge is written in Go under MIT. Open WebUI has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, sponge 9%. 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 | sponge | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 158K | ★ 2.9K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-12-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 23K | ⑂ 270 |
| 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 sponge if
- You want the sponge feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and sponge 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 sponge
English 简体中文 Introduction Sponge is a powerful and easy to use Go development framework . Built on the core philosophy of "Definition is Code" , it aims to reshape the backend development experience through automatic generation technology, unleashing productivity and boosting development efficiency. Sponge deeply integrates a code generation engine , Gin (Web framework) , and gRPC (microservice framework) , covering the full software lifecycle from project generation, development, and testing to API documentation and deployment. Core Features: Definition Driven Development : Automatically parses SQL, Protobuf…
read the full sponge overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Open WebUI or sponge more popular?
Open WebUI has 157,575 GitHub stars and sponge has 2,869. Open WebUI has the larger community by that measure.
Are Open WebUI and sponge free?
Both are open source. Open WebUI has no licence declared in this registry, and sponge is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Open WebUI and sponge?
Open WebUI is written in Python and sponge in Go. 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 sponge?
Choose Open WebUI if you want the larger community (157,575 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose sponge if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.