Open WebUI sure does pull in a lot of dependencies... Do I really need all of langchain, pytorch, and plenty others for what is advertised as a _frontend_?
Some of the features (RAG retrieval) now use embeddings that are calculated in Open WebUI rather than in Ollama or another backend. It does seem like it'd be nice for them to refactor to make things like that optional for those who want a simpler interface, but then again, there are plenty of other lighter-weight options.
I love what llamafile is doing, but I'm primarily interested in a frontend for ollama, as I prefer their method of model/weights distribution. Unless I'm wrong, llamafile serves as both the frontend and backend.
If I understand the distinction correctly, I run llamafile as a backend. I start it with the filename of a model on the command-line (might need a -M flag or something) and it will start up a chat-prompt for interaction in the terminal but also opens a port that speaks some protocol that I can connect to using a frontend (in my case usually gptel in emacs).
Given how much data (personal and otherwise) that you're likely going to feeding into it, I would HIGHLY recommend using an open-source chat interface like Jan.
It's cross platform, works with most LLMs, and has extension support.
If you're going through the trouble of running models locally, it doesn't make sense to couple that with a proprietary closed source interface (like LM Studio).
I agree it's a fine interface, clearly a lot of work has gone into making it polished and feature-rich. I'm simply seeking alternatives. If there aren't any with the same feature set, I'll probably just use Open WebUI.
Does anyone know of a lighter/minimalist version?