# LM Studio vs Open WebUI

> LM Studio has a score of 57.9 (C) against Open WebUI's 52 (D). Both do local inference. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 40 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lm-studio-vs-open-webui.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- 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: 2026-10-04

LM Studio has a score of 57.9 (C) against Open WebUI's 52 (D). Both do local inference. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 40 points.

- LM Studio: grade C, 57.9/100, rank #287 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lm-studio.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lm-studio.json
- Open WebUI: grade D, 52/100, rank #345 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/open-webui.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/open-webui.json

## Which one, for what

Pick LM Studio for agent ergonomics (+15), payments & pricing (+40).

Pick Open WebUI for reliability (+34), maintenance & community (+19), transparency & trust (+12).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | LM Studio | Open WebUI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 34 | 68 | Open WebUI +34 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 60 | LM Studio +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 54 | LM Studio +15 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 59 | 63 | Open WebUI +4 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 20 | LM Studio +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 91 | Open WebUI +19 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 73 | Open WebUI +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -8 | |
| **Total** | | **57.9 · C** | **52 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | LM Studio | Open WebUI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | Model platform |
| Vendor | Element Labs, Inc. | 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 | Proprietary. The app and llmster are free for personal and internal business use under LM Studio's terms (Element Labs, Inc., effective 23 August 2026), with no source published. The `lms` CLI and the TypeScript and Python SDKs are MIT | 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 | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-21 |
| Popularity | 69k npm/wk, 15k PyPI/wk | 153k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 2.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**LM Studio.** OpenAI-compatible chat completions, responses, completions and embeddings, Anthropic-compatible /v1/messages and a native /api/v1, all on one port. Authentication is off by default, so any local process can call the server.

**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

### LM Studio

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer $LM_API_TOKEN` when the owner gives you a token. With Require Authentication on, every request needs it
2. Pass `previous_response_id` to /api/v1/chat instead of resending the history, and `store: false` for one-off calls
3. List models with `GET /api/v1/models` before naming one. A named model that's downloaded loads just in time
4. Install the Python SDK pre-release (1.6.0b1) and pass `api_token` directly. It reads `LMSTUDIO_API_TOKEN`, not the `LM_API_TOKEN` the docs name
5. Set `allowed_tools` on every MCP integration. Without it the model sees every tool on the server

### 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 LM Studio or Open WebUI

- [AnythingLLM vs LM Studio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-lm-studio.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-open-webui.md)
- [GPT4All vs LM Studio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpt4all-vs-lm-studio.md)
- [GPT4All vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpt4all-vs-open-webui.md)
- [Jan vs LM Studio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-lm-studio.md)
- [Jan vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-open-webui.md)
- [Khoj vs LM Studio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-lm-studio.md)
- [Khoj vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-open-webui.md)
- [llama.cpp vs LM Studio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-cpp-vs-lm-studio.md)
- [llama.cpp vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-cpp-vs-open-webui.md)
- [LM Studio vs LocalAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lm-studio-vs-localai.md)
- [LM Studio vs Ollama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lm-studio-vs-ollama.md)
- [LM Studio vs screenpipe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lm-studio-vs-screenpipe.md)
- [LocalAI vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/localai-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)
- [LM Studio vs Underdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lm-studio-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.