Open WebUI

About Open WebUI

What gets installed

Ready when the VPS starts

Compatible OS

Ubuntu 24.04

Application

Open WebUI

Tech stack

DockerPythonOllama (optional)

Minimum RAM

2 GB

Minimum CPU

2 vCPU

Default port

3000

Access

root over SSH

Key features

• Compatible with Ollama (local models) and the OpenAI/Anthropic API
• Built-in RAG: query your PDF documents, texts and knowledge bases
• Multi-user management with roles and permissions
• Persistent conversation history, exportable
• Multimodal support: text, images, code
• Responsive interface, light/dark theme

When to use this solution?

Guide

Deploy Open WebUI on your VPS

1. 1

   What the installation does for you

   When the VPS is created, ServOrbit installs Docker if it is missing, then starts the official ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main container, with its data in the open-webui volume. The interface listens on 127.0.0.1:3000, the server's loopback interface: nothing is published on its IP address. Ollama is not included: Open WebUI alone needs 2 GB of RAM, and if you add Ollama on the same VPS, plan for at least 8 GB more for it.

2. 2

   Find the address and access details

   The “Open WebUI is installed” email and your VPS page in the client area, under “Installed applications”, tell you how to open the app: its address when a domain is in place, otherwise the SSH tunnel command and the port. You will also find the link to this guide and the “Support” button there.

3. 3

   Open Open WebUI without a domain

   From your computer, run ssh -L 3000:127.0.0.1:3000 root@<vps-ip>, keep the session open, then open http://localhost:3000. The port may have been reassigned during installation: use the one shown in your client area, 3000 being only the catalogue default.

4. 4

   Log in for the first time

   Do it right away: the first account created on the sign-up screen becomes the administrator, and the following ones stay pending your approval. Then connect your models in the admin panel, under Connections: an API key from OpenAI or a compatible service, or the address of an Ollama instance reachable from the container.

5. 5

   Publish over HTTPS on a domain

   When Open WebUI is installed from your client area with a chosen address — your own domain or a free ServOrbit subdomain — the platform sets up the nginx vhost and the Let's Encrypt certificate. An installation made when the VPS was created, or without an address, is published from the VPS page: the “Attach a domain” button in the app's block (a domain from your account, the free subdomain, or a name you point to the server).

6. 6

   Appendix: redo everything by hand

   To reinstall without the platform: install Docker, then run docker run -d --name open-webui --restart unless-stopped -p 127.0.0.1:3000:8080 -v open-webui:/app/backend/data --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main. Put a reverse proxy in front (nginx, for example) with a Let's Encrypt certificate (certbot --nginx -d <domain>).