Dify vs Open WebUI: Which self-hosted LLM UI is right for you?
One is a full-featured workflow builder. One ships in 5 minutes. Both are open source. Here's how to pick.
Dify Cloud pricing. Self-hosted Dify: free software + ~$50-100/mo server. Open WebUI self-hosted: free. Opsily managed Open WebUI: $30-40/mo includes SSL, backups, monitoring.
Why Open WebUI deploys so fast
No workflow builder to learn. No Postgres database to configure. Just a clean chat interface that connects to your models.
Choose Your App
Select an app to get started.
Point to your models
Connect to Ollama, vLLM, OpenAI, Claude, or any LLM API. Takes one click.
Deploy the container
Single Docker command. Opsily handles SSL, backups, and monitoring for you.
Invite your team
Role-based access. Multi-user by default. No per-seat fees.
Start chatting
Your team gets a clean UI immediately. No workflows, no complexity.
saved per year per team, compared to Dify Cloud
Open WebUI costs $30-40/month on Opsily. Dify Professional is $99/month. At 12 months, the gap is huge. And you get better GDPR compliance.
Why teams choose Opsily for Open WebUI
Self-hosting is free. Managed hosting is the sane middle ground.
Deploy in 3 minutes
No Postgres. No Redis. No debugging Docker networks. Just click 'Deploy' and you have a working Open WebUI with SSL, daily backups, and automatic updates. Your team can start using it before lunch.
No ops burden
We handle monitoring, patching, scaling, and uptime. You don't wake up at 2 AM because your model server crashed. All EU data stays in Germany. Full GDPR compliance, no data transfer to the US.
Scales with you
One chat interface, unlimited users. No per-user licensing. No per-app fees. One price: $30-40/month. Add Ollama, connect OpenAI, invite 50 people, and the cost stays the same.
Built for teams who need reliability
Choose Dify if you need workflows
You have multi-step tasks. Request data from an API, pass it to an LLM, transform the output, send it to Slack. Dify's visual builder handles this. You can A/B test prompts. You get production monitoring. Dify is the workflow engine. Cost: $99-199/mo on cloud, or self-hosted if you have ops capacity.
Choose Open WebUI if you just need chat
Your team asks questions. The model answers. You upload PDFs for context. That's it. Open WebUI does chat beautifully. No workflows. No agents. No 3-week learning curve. Cost: Free if you self-host, or $30-40/mo on Opsily if you want someone else to handle ops.
The honest truth
Dify wins on features. Open WebUI wins on speed and simplicity. For 80% of teams, the simplicity win means Open WebUI is the right call. For the 20% who need conditional logic and multi-step agents, Dify is worth the cost and the learning curve.
Security & Compliance
Both are open source. Data residency matters. Only one has GDPR-ready EU hosting out of the box.
Open source, always
Both tools are MIT-licensed. You own your code. No vendor lock-in. You can audit the entire codebase.
EU data residency (Open WebUI on Opsily)
German servers. No US data transfer. Compliant with GDPR from day one. Dify Cloud routes through US infrastructure.
Zero telemetry
Neither tool phones home. Self-hosted means your data never leaves your control. Opsily managed stays in German data centers.
Your questions, answered
On Opsily: 3 minutes. You sign up, click deploy, and your team has a working chat interface with SSL and backups. Self-hosted: about 15 minutes if you know Docker. Dify Cloud: you're ready to chat in minutes, but learning the workflow builder takes 3-4 weeks if you want to use it.
Ready to pick Open WebUI?
Deploy in 3 minutes. No credit card required. Full GDPR compliance included.