🔌 Connect a Provider

Connect Open WebUI to any model provider and start chatting in minutes.

Open WebUI supports multiple connection protocols, including Ollama, OpenAI-compatible APIs, and Open Responses. Any cloud API or local server that speaks one of these protocols works out of the box. Just add a URL and API key, and your models appear in the dropdown.

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How It Works

┌──────────────┐         ┌──────────────────┐         ┌──────────────┐
│              │  HTTP    │                  │  Inference│             │
│  Open WebUI  │────────▶│  Provider API    │────────▶ │    Model     │
│  (frontend)  │◀────────│  (cloud/local)   │◀──────── │  (LLM/VLM)  │
│              │  Stream  │                  │  Tokens  │             │
└──────────────┘         └──────────────────┘         └──────────────┘

1. You type a message in Open WebUI
2. Open WebUI sends it to your provider's API endpoint
3. The provider runs inference on the selected model
4. Tokens stream back to Open WebUI in real time
5. You see the response in the chat interface

tip

Adding a provider is as simple as entering a URL and API key in Admin Settings → Connections. Open WebUI auto-detects available models from most providers.

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Cloud Providers

Hosted APIs that require an account and API key. No hardware needed.

Provider	Models	Guide
Ollama	Llama, Mistral, Gemma, Phi, and thousands more (local)	Starting with Ollama →
OpenAI	GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, o3, o4-mini	Starting with OpenAI →
Anthropic	Claude Opus, Sonnet, Haiku	Starting with Anthropic →
OpenAI-Compatible	Google Gemini, DeepSeek, Mistral, Groq, OpenRouter, Amazon Bedrock, Azure, and more	OpenAI-Compatible Providers →

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Local Servers

Run models on your own hardware. No API keys, no cloud dependency.

Server	Description	Guide
llama.cpp	Efficient GGUF model inference with OpenAI-compatible API	Starting with llama.cpp →
vLLM	High-throughput inference engine for production workloads	Starting with vLLM →

More local servers (LM Studio, LocalAI, Docker Model Runner, Lemonade) are covered in the OpenAI-Compatible Providers guide.

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Other Connection Methods

Feature	Description	Guide
Open Responses	Connect providers using the Open Responses specification	Starting with Open Responses →
Functions	Extend Open WebUI with custom pipe functions for any backend	Starting with Functions →

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Looking for Agents?

If you want to connect an autonomous AI agent (with terminal access, file operations, web search, and more) instead of a plain model provider, see Connect an Agent.