head to head · open source
Open WebUI vs waku-agent
Open WebUI has 157,575 GitHub stars, 22,923 forks, 294 open issues and last shipped yesterday. waku-agent has 2,126 stars, 418 forks, 24 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. Open WebUI leads on adoption by 7,312% (157,575 vs 2,126 stars). Open WebUI is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; waku-agent is written in Python under MIT. Open WebUI has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, waku-agent 20%. 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 (llm, openai), 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 | waku-agent | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 158K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 23K | ⑂ 418 |
| 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 waku-agent if
- You want the waku-agent feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and waku-agent 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 waku-agent
waku agent Your own AI assistant. On your laptop. In code you can read in an afternoon. Meet Waku — a local first personal assistant that shows the four pillars behind every serious agent: Harness · Loop · Memory · Eval/LLM Ops . No frameworks hiding the good parts. Built by seanchen.io. Local first. Your memory is one SQLite file. Open it. Read it. It's yours. Memory is the hero. Semantic + episodic + procedural — with a gate that decides whether to remember, and a pass that decides what to keep. The loop is 95 lines of plain Python. Step through it. Watch it think. A local dashboard lights up every message as…
read the full waku-agent overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Open WebUI or waku-agent more popular?
Open WebUI has 157,575 GitHub stars and waku-agent has 2,126. Open WebUI has the larger community by that measure.
Are Open WebUI and waku-agent free?
Both are open source. Open WebUI has no licence declared in this registry, and waku-agent is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Open WebUI and waku-agent?
Open WebUI is written in Python and waku-agent 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 waku-agent?
Choose Open WebUI if you want the larger community (157,575 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose waku-agent if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.