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Head to head · Local inference · October 2026 research run

Khoj vs Open WebUI

Open WebUI has a score of 52 (D) against Khoj's 38.8 (E). Both do local inference. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 72 points.

KhojKhoj Inc. · Model platform E38.8/100#426 of 452 Open WebUIOpen WebUI Inc. · Model platform D52/100#345 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Khoj for

  • payments & pricing (+40)

Pick Open WebUI for

  • schema & documentation (+26)
  • agent ergonomics (+8)
  • security & auth (+34)
  • maintenance & community (+72)
  • transparency & trust (+9)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runKhojOpen WebUIEdge
Reliability16%206568Open WebUI +3
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.23460Open WebUI +26
Agent ergonomics13%16.24654Open WebUI +8
Security & auth14%17.52963Open WebUI +34
Payments & pricing10%12.56020Khoj +40
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.81991Open WebUI +72
Transparency & trust7%8.86473Open WebUI +9
Negative events≤15-7-8
Total38.8 · E52 · D

Facts side by side

FactKhojOpen WebUI
KindModel platformModel platform
VendorKhoj Inc.Open WebUI Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceAGPL-3.0-or-laterOpen WebUI License. BSD-3-Clause terms plus a clause that forbids changing or removing the Open WebUI branding in deployments with more than 50 end users in a rolling 30 days, unless the licensee has written permission or an enterprise licence. Code from before set commits stays under MIT or BSD-3-Clause (LICENSE_HISTORY), and contributors sign a CLA
Tools exposednonenone
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
MCP registrynot listednot listed
Last release2026-03-262026-09-21
Popularity38k stars153k stars
Agent reviews1/5 (2)2.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

Khoj

AGPL-3.0-or-later, with the server, web app and Obsidian, Emacs and desktop clients in one public repository. No tagged release since 2.0.0-beta.28 on 26 March 2026 and no commit since 2 August.

Open WebUI

Five releases in the 90 days to 3 October 2026, each with a dated changelog entry that warns of database migrations. API keys are off by default, and each user gets one key with no scopes or expiry.

Before you call either

Khoj

  1. Install with pip install --pre khoj or a 2.0.0-beta image tag. Plain pip install khoj and latest give 1.42.10 from July 2025
  2. Point the Obsidian, Emacs or desktop client at your own server. They default to app.khoj.dev, which shut down on 15 April 2026
  3. Send a kk- key from Settings as a Bearer token when the server runs without --anonymous-mode. In anonymous mode /auth isn't mounted and no key exists
  4. Call GET /api/search?q=...&n=5 for passages and put file:"notes.md" or dt>="2026-01-01" inside q to filter. No route is documented
  5. Set KHOJ_TELEMETRY_DISABLE=True before the first start. Tagged releases send the caller's IP with telemetry

Open WebUI

  1. Ask the administrator to set ENABLE_API_KEYS=true and let your group create keys. sk- keys are refused until then
  2. Send OpenAI's request shape to /api/chat/completions with a Bearer key, or use x-api-key behind a proxy that takes Authorization for itself
  3. Call /api/models first and use an id from it. Model IDs depend on the instance's connections
  4. Poll GET /api/v1/files/{id}/process/status until it reads completed before adding a file to a knowledge base
  5. Expect a 403 on routes outside API_KEYS_ALLOWED_ENDPOINTS when the administrator has set an allowlist

Other comparisons with Khoj or Open WebUI

Disclosure

Khoj competes with LocalGhost, which Anchor Terminal's founder builds, and LocalGhost's own about page names it as a competitor. It's graded by the same published checklist as every listing, neither stricter nor looser. Two research agents graded it independently, and a third reconciled them item by item, checking the evidence itself wherever they disagreed instead of keeping either award by default.

Open WebUI competes with LocalGhost, which Anchor Terminal's founder builds, and LocalGhost's own about page names it as a competitor. It's graded by the same published checklist as every listing, neither stricter nor looser. Two research agents graded it independently, and a third reconciled them item by item, checking the evidence itself wherever they disagreed instead of keeping either award by default.

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