Open WebUI

0.8.12 · active · verified Sat Apr 11

Open WebUI is an extensible, feature-rich, and user-friendly self-hosted AI platform designed to operate entirely offline. It supports various Large Language Model (LLM) runners, including Ollama and OpenAI-compatible APIs, with built-in inference engine for RAG. It provides a ChatGPT-style interface for interacting with local or cloud-based models. The project is actively developed with continuous updates.

Warnings

breaking When using Docker, the `:main` tag always points to the latest build and can include breaking changes without warning. For production or stability, it is recommended to pin a specific version tag (e.g., `:v0.8.6`).
Fix: Use a specific version tag (e.g., `ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:v0.8.12`) instead of `:main` in Docker commands.
gotcha A persistent `WEBUI_SECRET_KEY` environment variable is crucial. Without it, Open WebUI generates a random key on each restart, leading to user logouts and 'Error decrypting tokens' for essential secrets like OAuth tokens or API keys.
Fix: Set a persistent `WEBUI_SECRET_KEY` environment variable in your deployment environment.
gotcha Ensure you are using Python 3.11 for installation to avoid compatibility issues. The library requires Python <3.13.0a1,>=3.11.
Fix: Use `python=3.11` when creating virtual environments (e.g., `conda create -n open-webui python=3.11`) or ensure your system default is 3.11.
gotcha For Docker deployments with Ollama, connection issues often arise if the WebUI container cannot reach the Ollama server. Using `--network=host` and setting `OLLAMA_BASE_URL` (e.g., `http://127.0.0.1:11434`) in your Docker run command can resolve this.
Fix: Add `--network=host` and `-e OLLAMA_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:11434` to your `docker run` command.
gotcha Enabling `ENABLE_REALTIME_CHAT_SAVE` in production is strongly discouraged. It causes massive database write pressure and severe performance degradation under concurrent load.
Fix: Ensure `ENABLE_REALTIME_CHAT_SAVE` is set to `False` (or not set, as `False` is the default) in production environments.
gotcha After updating Open WebUI, it's a common issue that the UI might appear broken due to stale frontend assets.
Fix: Clear your browser cache (Ctrl+F5 or Cmd+Shift+R) after updating.
gotcha Workspace Tools and Functions execute arbitrary Python code on your server. Restrict Workspace access to trusted administrators only, as granting tool creation/import access is equivalent to giving shell access.
Fix: Review and restrict user permissions for 'Workspace → Tools' to trusted administrators.

Install

pip install open-webui Install via pip

Quickstart

Install Open WebUI via pip and then start the web server. The UI will typically be accessible at http://localhost:8080 (or http://localhost:3000 if using Docker without --network=host).

pip install open-webui
open-webui serve

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