Skip to content

GUI Tools

Visual interfaces for interacting with local LLMs.

Overview

GUI tools provide:

  • User-friendly interface - Chat without command line
  • Model management - Download, switch, configure models
  • Conversation history - Persistent chat sessions
  • Multi-backend - Connect to various inference engines

Tool Comparison

Feature LM Studio Jan.ai Open WebUI
Platform macOS, Windows, Linux macOS, Windows, Linux Web (any)
Model source HuggingFace HuggingFace Any OpenAI-compatible
Local server Yes Yes Connects to backends
Offline Yes Yes Backend dependent
Multi-user No No Yes
RAG No Extensions Built-in
Open source No Yes Yes
Privacy Good Excellent Depends on setup

Feature Matrix

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Desktop Applications                          │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                  │
│  ┌─────────────────────┐    ┌─────────────────────┐             │
│  │      LM Studio      │    │       Jan.ai        │             │
│  ├─────────────────────┤    ├─────────────────────┤             │
│  │ ✓ Model discovery   │    │ ✓ 100% offline      │             │
│  │ ✓ Built-in chat     │    │ ✓ No telemetry      │             │
│  │ ✓ OpenAI API server │    │ ✓ Extensions        │             │
│  │ ✓ Good for testing  │    │ ✓ Privacy-first     │             │
│  └─────────────────────┘    └─────────────────────┘             │
│                                                                  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Web-Based Interface                           │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                  │
│  ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐    │
│  │                      Open WebUI                          │    │
│  ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤    │
│  │ ✓ Connects to Ollama, OpenAI, any compatible API        │    │
│  │ ✓ Multi-user with authentication                        │    │
│  │ ✓ RAG (document upload and search)                      │    │
│  │ ✓ Model switching                                       │    │
│  │ ✓ Chat history                                          │    │
│  │ ✓ Self-hosted                                           │    │
│  └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘    │
│                                                                  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Recommendation by Use Case

Use Case Recommended Tool
Quick model testing LM Studio
Privacy-focused use Jan.ai
Team/multi-user Open WebUI
Server deployment Open WebUI
Model discovery LM Studio
Offline work Jan.ai or LM Studio

Quick Start

LM Studio

  1. Download from lmstudio.ai
  2. Search and download a model
  3. Start chatting or enable API server

Jan.ai

  1. Download from jan.ai
  2. Download models from Hub
  3. Chat offline

Open WebUI

docker run -d \
  -p 3000:8080 \
  -v /tank/ai/data/open-webui:/app/backend/data \
  -e OLLAMA_BASE_URL=http://host.docker.internal:11434 \
  --name open-webui \
  ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main

Topics

See Also