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Open WebUI

A polished self-hosted AI interface whose licence now carries a branding clause.

Instead of ChatGPT, Claude

M · ToolSelf-hostableCustom licenceWorks with Ollama
openwebui.com
Screenshot of the Open WebUI website

Screenshot from openwebui.com, taken 2026-10-30, shown to help you recognise the tool. It belongs to its maker. Ask us to remove it.

Open WebUI is the interface many people meet first when they install Ollama, and the story of its licence is worth knowing before you build on it. The project's docs say code up to and including version 0.6.5 stays BSD-3-Clause, and that from 0.6.6 it is permissively licensed with a branding clause that the docs say is not an OSI-approved open source licence.

Open WebUI scores a 4 on lock-in, self-direction, longevity and delivery, a 3 on footprint and a 2 on power.

The clause says you may not remove or change the Open WebUI name, logo or marks in any deployment, unless you have 50 or fewer users in 30 days, hold a written exception as a substantive contributor, or have an enterprise licence. Co-branding and white-labelling for a business or SaaS need that enterprise licence, and the docs say new contributions fall under the new terms only if the contributor signs a new CLA. For one person or a household none of that bites, and for an organization it is the first thing to read, so Power is a 2.

    What stands out

  • A self-hosted AI interface that works with Ollama
  • From version 0.6.6 the licence carries a branding clause and is not OSI-approved
  • Removing the branding needs 50 or fewer users or an enterprise licence
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For comparison, we also reviewed ChatGPT (14/30) and Claude (15/30) as a benchmark.

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