Open WebUI
The self-hosted AI chat workspace - any model behind one UI, RAG over your documents, no per-seat pricing.
One-click deploy, from $13/mo on a Miget plan.
Team AI chat subscriptions charge per seat for what is mostly a UI: ChatGPT Business and Claude Team both land around $25 per user per month before anyone sends a token. Open WebUI is the self-hosted answer - a polished, fast chat workspace over any OpenAI-compatible API, with the team features (accounts, RBAC, shared prompts, document RAG) included.
One container, one volume, one secret. Users sign up (first account is admin, the rest need approval), upload documents for retrieval, and chat against whatever models you connect. No GPU involved - models run at your API providers.
The strongest deployment pairs it with this catalogue’s litellm gateway: every provider behind one base URL, per-team budgets on virtual keys, and this UI in front. A 10-person team pays raw token prices plus $13/month - versus ~$250/month in seats before usage.
Upstream project: Open WebUI
#what you get
- ChatGPT-style UI over any OpenAI-compatible endpoint
- Multi-user with RBAC; first account becomes admin
- RAG: upload documents, chat over them (built-in vector store)
- Prompt presets, model switching, conversation sharing
- Single container + volume - SQLite and Chroma embedded
- Pairs with litellm for budgets and provider routing
#topology
| Service | Role | Public |
|---|---|---|
| open-webui | chat workspace (:5000) | yes (accounts) |
#miget sizing
// this stack needs
2 GiB RAM · 5 GB disk · 1 service
2 GiB covers the app plus its embedded embedding models for RAG. State (users, chats, documents, vectors) lives on the volume; external Postgres/Qdrant are supported when a single node stops being enough.
Hobby - recommended fit
$13/mo
1 vCPU · 2 GiB · 50 GiB disk
Headroom for your own apps: 2 GiB at $19/mo
Professional - production
$22/mo
1 vCPU · 2 GiB · 10 GiB disk
Dedicated resources, production SLOs - plan details
One Miget plan is a fixed pool of compute - the whole stack (managed databases included) deploys inside it, and anything left over runs your other apps. No per-service or per-seat math.
#vs. the managed service
What the hosted equivalents charge, against the flat Miget plan this stack fits on. Prices as of June 2026, sources linked.
| Service | Plan | Monthly | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open WebUI on Miget ★ | 2 GiB plan | $13 | this whole stack, flat - no usage meters, and room left for your own apps |
| ChatGPT Business | per seat | ~$250 | $25/user/mo monthly ($20 annual) at 10 users - before any API usage |
| Claude Team | per seat | ~$250 | $25/seat/mo monthly ($20 annual) at 10 users; premium seats $125/mo |
Self-hosted, the team pays raw API token prices (via the litellm template) plus $13/month for the UI - no seats.
#vs. other PaaS
Estimated monthly cost of running this exact stack (2 GiB RAM, 5 GB disk, 1 container) elsewhere, from published June 2026 rates.
| Platform | Est. monthly | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Miget ★ | $13 flat | compose stacks first-class: one deploy, dedicated vCPU, managed Postgres/Valkey, volumes and TLS all included in the plan |
| Heroku | ~$100 | no volumes; nothing between 1 GB ($50) and 2.5 GB ($250) dynos - 2 GB containers cost far more than shown |
| DO App Platform | ~$29 | no persistent volumes - stateful containers need managed DBs/Spaces (base $5 Spaces included here) |
| Render | ~$26 | per-service instances (0.5 GB $7, 2 GB $25) - every container is its own paid service |
| Railway | ~$21 | usage-based ($10/GB RAM-mo); vCPU billed separately at $20/vCPU-mo on top |
| Fly.io | ~$13 | cheapest sticker price - but burstable shared CPUs (1/16 core; dedicated vCPUs cost ~2-3×), no compose deploys (one app per container, manual wiring), managed DBs billed extra |
Estimates assume RAM fully allocated at published on-demand rates - and sticker price isn't the whole comparison: the cheaper rows buy burstable shared CPUs, per-service wiring instead of a compose deploy, and managed databases billed separately. Heroku and DO App Platform have no persistent volumes at all - stateful stacks like this one need workarounds there.
#deploy it
On Miget
- Create a Compose Stack in app.miget.com pointing at the templates repository
- Set the stack path to
open-webui -
Set the required variables:
WEBUI_SECRET_KEY, session signing (openssl rand -hex 32) - persistent, or logins reset on redeployOPENAI_API_KEY, key for your endpoint (a LiteLLM virtual key works perfectly)
- Deploy. Miget layers
compose.miget.yaml(RAM, privacy, volumes, managed services) automatically
Locally first?
Every template is portable, vanilla Docker Compose - the Miget overrides are ignored locally:
git clone https://github.com/deployable-sh/stacks
cd miget-compose-templates/open-webui
docker compose up -dSame files, same behavior. The template README covers connection strings and scaling notes.
#faq
How does this compare to ChatGPT Business or Claude Team?
Both charge ~$25/seat/month ($20 annual) - $250/month for ten people, before usage. Open WebUI + LiteLLM pays raw API token prices with no seat fee: for typical internal usage that is a fraction of the subscription cost, and you choose models per conversation.
Does it need Ollama or a GPU?
No - this template deliberately uses the API-only image. Connect any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (OpenAI, Anthropic via LiteLLM, Gemini, your own vLLM elsewhere). The :ollama variant exists for local models, but that is a different RAM/GPU conversation.
How does the RAG feature work?
Upload documents in the UI; Open WebUI chunks and embeds them into its built-in vector store and injects relevant passages into chats. For heavier knowledge bases, it supports external vector stores - the catalogue’s qdrant template plugs in via VECTOR_DB settings.
What is the licensing situation?
Open WebUI uses a BSD-3-derived license with a branding-protection clause: keep the Open WebUI branding visible (fine for internal deployments; white-labeling it as your own product requires their enterprise license).
Ship Open WebUI today
One compose stack, 2 GiB of RAM, from $13/month flat, and it runs on your laptop with the same files.