LM Studio vs Open WebUI

LM Studio (Discover, download, and run local LLMs) and Open WebUI (On a mission to build the best AI user interface.) both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.

LM Studio (rank #165) holds a narrow lead over Open WebUI (rank #189) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (51 vs 50). The gap of 1 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

On code quality (the state of repositories, tests, releases and polish), Open WebUI is slightly ahead of LM Studio. On community (issue response, PR reviews and discussion health), Open WebUI is ahead of LM Studio. On reach (how visible the ecosystem is beyond its own repos), LM Studio is clearly ahead of Open WebUI.

LM Studio carries 10,521 GitHub stars across 11 public repos, with 5 repositories active in the last 90 days and 42 external contributors on record. Open WebUI shows 159,650 stars across 25 public repos, 12 active in the last 90 days and 198 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but Open WebUI's footprint is roughly 15.2x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.

LM Studio is the stronger read for anyone weighting reach. Open WebUI looks better where community is the deciding factor. The table below breaks the scores down pillar by pillar; the linked profiles cover the underlying repos, docs and community signals in full.