# Jan vs Open WebUI

Jan records 291,894 monthly visits with -9.6% month-over-month growth and Free pricing. Open WebUI records 804,534 monthly visits with -2.8% growth and Freemium pricing.

| Metric | [Jan](https://openaitools.app/tool/jan) | [Open WebUI](https://openaitools.app/tool/open-webui) |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Website URL | https://jan.ai | https://openwebui.com |
| Categories | AI Chatbot, AI Assistant, Open Source AI Models, Large Language Models (LLMs) | Large Language Models (LLMs), AI Chatbot, Open Source AI Models, AI Developer Tools |
| Pricing Model | Free | Freemium |
| Monthly Visits | 291,894 | 804,534 |
| MoM Growth Rate | -9.6% | -2.8% |
| Primary Market | United States | United States |
| Direct Visits | 105,615 | 299,835 |
| Review Score | 4.6 | 4.4 |
| Saved Count | 6 | 0 |
| Supported Platforms | Website | Website |

## Jan

Jan is a desktop application that positions itself as an open replacement for ChatGPT, with the key difference that inference happens on hardware you control. After installing the app you pick a model, and Jan downloads and runs it locally, so prompts, chat history, and files stay on your machine rather than on someone else's server. For heavier workloads you can connect an OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, or Mistral key and route requests to the cloud while keeping the same chat interface and local history.

The project is developed in the open by Menlo Research and has accumulated tens of thousands of GitHub stars along with millions of downloads. It exposes OpenAI-compatible local endpoints, which means existing tooling and SDKs can point at Jan instead of a hosted service, and it supports custom assistants with their own instructions and model choices. Recent releases have added an agent surface alongside the classic desktop chat, and a memory feature is announced as coming to carry context and preferences between sessions.

Because it is open source, Jan can be audited, self-built, and extended, and there is no paid tier gating the desktop client. The practical tradeoff is that local model quality and speed depend entirely on your own GPU or CPU, so lighter machines will favor smaller quantized models while cloud keys remain the escape hatch for harder tasks.

**Pricing & Plans:** Jan is free and open source, with no paid tier for the desktop app. Costs only appear if you optionally connect your own paid cloud API keys for providers such as OpenAI or Anthropic.

- **Local-first inference:** Download and run open models such as Llama, Mistral, Qwen, Gemma, and DeepSeek directly on your own machine, with chat data kept on device.
- **Bring your own cloud models:** Optionally connect API keys for OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Mistral, and other providers to route requests to frontier models from the same interface.
- **OpenAI-compatible local API:** Jan exposes a local server endpoint that follows the OpenAI API shape, so existing SDKs and tools can talk to your local models without code changes.
- **Custom assistants:** Create assistants with their own system instructions, model selection, and parameters, then reuse them across conversations.
- **Open source and extensible:** The full desktop client and agent code are public on GitHub, so you can audit behavior, build your own version, and contribute improvements.

**Strengths:** Completely free and open source, with no account required to run local models; Conversation data stays on your device by default; Works across macOS, Windows, and Linux with an OpenAI-compatible local endpoint; Optional cloud key support lets you mix local and frontier models in one app

**Limitations:** Local model quality and speed are capped by your own hardware; Very large models may need substantial RAM or VRAM to be practical; Some cloud-connected and memory features are newer or still rolling out

[Profile (Markdown)](https://openaitools.app/tool/jan.md)

## Open WebUI

Open WebUI is an open-source, self-hosted interface for working with AI models. Instead of renting access to a single vendor's chatbot, you run the interface on your own hardware or cloud tenancy, then connect whatever models you want: local runtimes such as Ollama, OpenAI-compatible endpoints, Anthropic, or a mix of local and remote. Everything a team produces — conversations, prompts, models, skills and tools — stays in an environment you administer.

The platform has grown well beyond a chat window. Retrieval-augmented generation, web search, document understanding, voice input and output, and vision are built in, and Python tools, functions and pipelines let developers script custom behaviour and share it. On the operations side it offers enterprise features such as SSO, role-based access control, audit logs, data residency options, and on-premises, hybrid or fully air-gapped deployment for regulated environments. White-labeling and custom branding are also available for organizations that want their own look.

Open WebUI is distributed free of charge under an open-source license and can be installed with a single pip or Docker command, with no account required to get running. A separate enterprise offering is available for organizations that want commercial support, compliance guarantees and managed rollout help, which is quoted on contact. A large community maintains a public hub of prompts, models, tools and functions, so much of what teams need is already shared and ready to install.

**Pricing & Plans:** The core platform is free and open source, installable via pip or Docker with no account required. An enterprise tier with support, compliance and deployment assistance is quoted on contact.

- **Any Model, Any Endpoint:** Connect local runtimes like Ollama alongside OpenAI-compatible and Anthropic APIs, and switch between them inside one interface.
- **Retrieval and Search Built In:** RAG over your own documents, web search and citation-aware answers come standard, so responses are grounded in real sources.
- **Python Tools, Functions and Pipelines:** Extend the platform with Python code to add custom tooling, preprocessing, and multi-step pipelines, then share them with others.
- **Enterprise Controls:** SSO, RBAC, audit logs, data residency, and on-premises, hybrid or air-gapped deployment for organisations with strict requirements.
- **Community Hub:** Browse and install prompts, models, skills and tools contributed by hundreds of thousands of community members.

**Strengths:** Free and open source with no account needed to install; Works with local and cloud models through a single interface; Strong privacy posture: your data and models stay on your infrastructure; Extensive enterprise features including SSO, RBAC and audit logs

**Limitations:** Self-hosting requires you to handle servers, updates and backups; Some enterprise capabilities and support sit behind a paid, quote-based tier; Feature depth means a learning curve for non-technical administrators; Local model performance depends heavily on your own hardware

[Profile (Markdown)](https://openaitools.app/tool/open-webui.md)

## Frequently Asked Questions

### How do Jan and Open WebUI compare in monthly traffic?

Jan has 291,894 monthly visits, while Open WebUI has 804,534. Traffic estimates describe audience size, not product quality.

### How do their growth rates compare?

Jan has a month-over-month growth rate of -9.6%; Open WebUI has -2.8%.

### How does pricing compare?

Jan: Free. Jan is free and open source, with no paid tier for the desktop app. Costs only appear if you optionally connect your own paid cloud API keys for providers such as OpenAI or Anthropic. Open WebUI: Freemium. The core platform is free and open source, installable via pip or Docker with no account required. An enterprise tier with support, compliance and deployment assistance is quoted on contact.

## Alternatives

| # | Tool Name | Monthly Visits | MoM Growth Rate | Pricing Model | Summary | Profile (Markdown) |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 1 | [Ollama](https://openaitools.app/tool/ollama) | 9,421,973 | +4.3% | Free, Freemium, Paid | Functions primarily as a lightweight CLI runtime for local models rather than a full-featured chat interface. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/ollama.md) |
| 2 | [n8n](https://openaitools.app/tool/n8n) | 4,522,449 | -7.4% | Freemium | Open-source workflow automation built for AI agents and technical teams | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/n8n.md) |
| 3 | [Hermes-Agent](https://openaitools.app/tool/hermes-agent-1) | 3,638,741 | -5.4% | Freemium | A free, open-source personal AI agent that learns your projects and works across every messaging app. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/hermes-agent-1.md) |
| 4 | [Clawdbot (OpenClaw)](https://openaitools.app/tool/clawdbot) | 1,903,068 | -25.4% | Paid, Free | Open-source personal AI assistant that runs on your own machine and works from chat apps | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/clawdbot.md) |
| 5 | [Dify](https://openaitools.app/tool/dify-ai) | 819,691 | -15% | Freemium | Specializes in visual workflow building and RAG pipelines rather than serving purely as a chat interface. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/dify-ai.md) |
| 6 | [LobeHub](https://openaitools.app/tool/lobehub) | 654,548 | -25% | Freemium | Focuses on collaborative team AI workspaces and plugins, but shares similar open-source architectural goals. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/lobehub.md) |
| 7 | [AnythingLLM](https://openaitools.app/tool/anythingllm) | 512,269 | +12.9% | Freemium | Focuses heavily on privacy-first document chat and local RAG pipelines, but offers fewer general-purpose chat UI features. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/anythingllm.md) |
| 8 | [LibreChat](https://openaitools.app/tool/librechat) | 346,879 | -3.5% | Free | Offers robust multi-provider support and advanced user permission management, but has a slightly different configuration setup. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/librechat.md) |
| 9 | [Activepieces](https://openaitools.app/tool/activepieces) | 258,553 | +1.5% | Freemium | Open-source AI automation that unifies agents, flows and 770+ app integrations | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/activepieces.md) |
| 10 | [Dyad](https://openaitools.app/tool/dyad) | 207,981 | +3.5% | Freemium | Free, open-source AI app builder that runs on your own machine | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/dyad.md) |

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Source: https://openaitools.app/compare/jan-vs-open-webui

More Markdown: [Categories](https://openaitools.app/categories.md) · [Traffic rankings](https://openaitools.app/rankings.md) · [llms.txt](https://openaitools.app/llms.txt)