# Lemonade vs Open WebUI

> Lemonade scores 63.8 (B) on agent readiness against Open WebUI's 51.8 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Open WebUI leads on security & auth, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do local inference. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side…

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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Lemonade scores 63.8 (B) on agent readiness against Open WebUI's 51.8 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Open WebUI leads on security & auth, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do local inference.

- Lemonade: grade B, 63.8/100, rank #336 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lemonade.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lemonade.json
- Open WebUI: grade D, 51.8/100, rank #664 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/open-webui.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/open-webui.json

## Which one, for what

### Lemonade (B)

Good for: An owner with AMD hardware (Ryzen AI NPUs, Radeon or Strix Halo) who wants one local server for chat, speech and images that existing OpenAI, Anthropic or Ollama clients can call, and for MCP clients that want local models as tools.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 75 against 68
- Schema & documentation, 70 against 60
- Agent ergonomics, 70 against 54
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 20

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- Open source
- No incidents deducted, where Open WebUI loses 8 points for them

Watch for: No authentication by default. With no key set, every route answers, including `/internal/*` shutdown and configuration

### Open WebUI (D)

Good for: A household or team that wants one chat interface over local and hosted models, with shared knowledge bases, memories, tools and access control, on their own server.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 63 against 36
- Maintenance & community, 91 against 76
- Transparency & trust, 71 against 64

Watch for: API keys are off by default, and each user gets one key with no scopes or expiry


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Lemonade | Open WebUI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 75 | 68 | Lemonade +7 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 60 | Lemonade +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 54 | Lemonade +16 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 36 | 63 | Open WebUI +27 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 20 | Lemonade +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 76 | 91 | Open WebUI +15 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 71 | Open WebUI +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -8 | |
| **Total** | | **63.8 · B** | **51.8 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Lemonade | Open WebUI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | Model platform |
| Vendor | AMD and the Lemonade community | Open WebUI Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache 2.0. Each backend (llama.cpp, whisper.cpp, stable-diffusion.cpp, FastFlowLM and others) is downloaded separately under its own licence | Open 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 exposed | 6 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-09-21 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-07-07 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2025-12-31 |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 5.8k stars | 153k stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Lemonade.** Apache 2.0, with weekly releases, installers for Windows, macOS and five Linux routes, and a six-tool MCP endpoint whose descriptions steer a caller away from accidental multi-gigabyte downloads. Authentication is off by default, the repository has no security policy, and the docs tell WebSocket clients to pass the key in the URL.

**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

### Lemonade

1. Call `lemonade_list_models` (or `GET /v1/models`) before naming a model. A wrong name with `allow_download: true` can start a multi-gigabyte download
2. Send `Authorization: Bearer <key>` when the operator has set `LEMONADE_API_KEY`. `/internal/*` needs the admin key when one is set
3. Use `POST /v1/chat/completions` for streamed tokens, embeddings and speech. The MCP endpoint ignores `stream` and has no embeddings or text-to-speech tool
4. Pass `output_dir` to `lemonade_generate_image` and `lemonade_omni` to get file paths in place of inline base64. Writes stay inside the MCP media sandbox
5. Read `GET /v1/docs` on the running server for the reference that matches its version. Weekly releases change behaviour

### 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

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Lemonade or Open WebUI?

Lemonade scores 63.8 (B) on agent readiness against Open WebUI's 51.8 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Open WebUI leads on security & auth, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

### Can an agent call Lemonade and Open WebUI without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Lemonade. No hosted endpoint is listed for Open WebUI.

### Are Lemonade and Open WebUI open source?

Lemonade is open source (Apache 2.0. Each backend (llama.cpp, whisper.cpp, stable-diffusion.cpp, FastFlowLM and others) is downloaded separately under its own licence). No open-source release is listed for Open WebUI.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-open-webui.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-open-webui.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "lemonade", "b": "open-webui"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare lemonade open-webui`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lemonade.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/open-webui.json

## Other comparisons with Lemonade or Open WebUI

- [AnythingLLM vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-lemonade.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-open-webui.md)
- [Docker Model Runner vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/docker-model-runner-vs-lemonade.md)
- [Docker Model Runner vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/docker-model-runner-vs-open-webui.md)
- [Foundry Local vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/foundry-local-vs-lemonade.md)
- [Foundry Local vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/foundry-local-vs-open-webui.md)
- [Core vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ghost-core-vs-lemonade.md)
- [Core vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ghost-core-vs-open-webui.md)
- [GPT4All vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpt4all-vs-lemonade.md)
- [GPT4All vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpt4all-vs-open-webui.md)
- [Jan vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-lemonade.md)
- [Jan vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-open-webui.md)
- [Khoj vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-lemonade.md)
- [Khoj vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-open-webui.md)
- [KoboldCpp vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koboldcpp-vs-lemonade.md)
- [KoboldCpp vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koboldcpp-vs-open-webui.md)
- [Lemonade vs llama.cpp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-llama-cpp.md)
- [Lemonade vs LM Studio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-lm-studio.md)
- [Lemonade vs LocalAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-localai.md)
- [Lemonade vs MLX LM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-mlx-lm.md)
- [Lemonade vs Ollama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-ollama.md)
- [Lemonade vs screenpipe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-screenpipe.md)
- [Lemonade vs TextGen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-text-generation-webui.md)
- [llama.cpp vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-cpp-vs-open-webui.md)
- [LM Studio vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lm-studio-vs-open-webui.md)
- [LocalAI vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/localai-vs-open-webui.md)
- [MLX LM vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mlx-lm-vs-open-webui.md)
- [Ollama vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ollama-vs-open-webui.md)
- [Open WebUI vs screenpipe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-webui-vs-screenpipe.md)
- [Open WebUI vs TextGen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-webui-vs-text-generation-webui.md)
- [Lemonade vs Underdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-underdog.md)

## Disclosure

- 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.