Open WebUI vs Text Generation WebUI: Compared

Quick Verdict Open WebUI is the better choice for most people who want a ChatGPT-like interface for self-hosted LLMs. It has multi-user support, RAG, web search, and a polished UI out of the box. Text Generation WebUI (Oobabooga) is the better choice if you need deep model control — quantization options, training, and fine-tuning. Think of Open WebUI as the "use LLMs" tool and Text Generation WebUI as the "tinker with LLMs" tool. Overview Both are web-based frontends for running large language models locally. Neither is a model — they're interfaces that connect to backends like Ollama, llama.cpp, or run models directly. Open WebUI — MIT license. 70k+ GitHub stars. Written in Python (SvelteKit frontend). Created as "Ollama WebUI," now a standalone project supporting multiple backends. Extremely active development with weekly releases (February 2026). Text Generation WebUI (Oobabooga) — AGPL-3.0 license. 41k+ GitHub stars. Written in Python (Gradio frontend). Created by oobabooga. Suppor