What Is Open WebUI
Open WebUI is a self-hosted web interface for local LLMs, designed as a feature-complete alternative to ChatGPT. It connects to Ollama (or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint) and adds a polished UI, document-based RAG, image generation, multi-user management, and a mobile-friendly PWA — all containerised and easy to deploy.
One-Command Docker Install With Ollama
If Ollama is already running on your machine:
docker run -d -p 3000:8080 --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway -v open-webui:/app/backend/data --name open-webui --restart always ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main
Open http://localhost:3000 and sign in with the admin account created on first launch. Open WebUI auto-discovers models from Ollama at host.docker.internal:11434.
Docker Compose With Bundled Ollama
version: "3.8"
services:
ollama:
image: ollama/ollama:latest
volumes:
- ollama:/root/.ollama
ports:
- "11434:11434"
open-webui:
image: ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main
depends_on:
- ollama
ports:
- "3000:8080"
environment:
- OLLAMA_BASE_URL=http://ollama:11434
volumes:
- open-webui:/app/backend/data
restart: always
volumes:
ollama:
open-webui:
Model Management UI
From the admin panel you can pull, delete, and switch models without touching the terminal. Open WebUI shows model size, VRAM usage, and pull progress in real time.
RAG Pipeline
Upload PDFs, Word docs, or web URLs in any conversation. Open WebUI chunks the content, embeds it with a local embedding model (default: nomic-embed-text via Ollama), stores vectors in its built-in ChromaDB, and injects relevant chunks into the system prompt automatically. The docs cover configuring external vector databases and adjusting chunk size and overlap.
Image Generation via AUTOMATIC1111
Connect an AUTOMATIC1111 Stable Diffusion WebUI instance in Settings → Images to enable /imagine prompts inside chat conversations. The generated image appears inline in the message thread.
Multi-User With Roles
Open WebUI has a built-in user database with Admin, User, and Pending roles. Admins can control which models each user can access, set per-user API key auth, and view usage statistics. This makes it suitable for small-team internal deployments.
PWA on Mobile
Open WebUI ships as a Progressive Web App. Add it to your phone's home screen from Safari or Chrome for a native-app-like experience with persistent chat history and offline model caching.
API Key Authentication
For programmatic access, generate API keys from your profile settings. The API mirrors the OpenAI format — useful for connecting external tools to your self-hosted model stack without exposing Ollama directly.
