Best Self Hosted Alternatives to Poe

Open WebUI is a self-hosted web interface for interacting with large language models (LLMs) through providers such as Ollama and OpenAI-compatible APIs. It focuses on providing a polished ChatGPT-like experience while giving admins control over users, models, connections, and knowledge sources.

Key Features

• Chat-oriented UI with conversation history, prompts, and model selection
• Supports Ollama plus OpenAI-compatible endpoints (local or remote)
• Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) with document/knowledge ingestion for “chat with your data”
• Multi-user support with authentication and admin/user management
• Configurable model settings (e.g., system prompts, parameters) and per-model/per-connection configuration
• Optional tools/extensions integration (e.g., web browsing/search and other connected capabilities, depending on deployment/config)
• Container-first deployment (commonly via Docker) and environment-based configuration

Use Cases

• Provide an internal ChatGPT-style assistant for a team using local models (Ollama)
• Run a controlled UI for multiple OpenAI-compatible backends (local or hosted) in one place
• Build a “chat with company docs” assistant using RAG/knowledge ingestion

Limitations and Considerations

• Feature set and available integrations can vary depending on configured backends and enabled components (e.g., RAG/tooling).

Open WebUI is well-suited for organizations and individuals who want a modern LLM chat UI with user management and optional knowledge grounding. It acts as a central front-end for one or more model providers, emphasizing flexibility and administrative control.