Comparison
Plexon and LibreChat, Open WebUI and Jan
Self-hosted chat front-ends you run yourself.
If the reason you are here is that you do not want your conversations on somebody else’s server, these get you most of the way for nothing. This page is about what the last part costs.
Sources checked 2026-07 at the oldest · LibreChat, Open WebUI and Jan’s own site
Where LibreChat, Open WebUI and Jan is the better choice
Free, and genuinely open source
No subscription, no vendor, no seat count. For a lot of people that is the beginning and the end of the decision.
You can read and change every line
Plexon is not open source. If auditing the code yourself is a requirement, this is not a comparison, it is a disqualification.
Multi-user out of the box
They are built to be hosted for a team. Plexon is a desktop application, one person per machine.
Model-agnostic by design
Point them at anything with an API and they will talk to it, with no opinion about which.
Side by side
Every cell in the LibreChat, Open WebUI and Jan column carries a source link and the month it was checked. If a row would read the same for both under a neutral label, it is not a difference and it is not here.
| Plexon | LibreChat, Open WebUI and Jan | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | ||
| Form factor | A desktop app you install | A server you host, reached in a browser src |
| Models | ||
| Included model | One subscription covering text, images, video, voice and music | Bring your own keys and pay per token src |
| Where your data lives | ||
| Conversation storage | Your machine | Your server src |
| Reach into your apps | ||
| Connector setup | Branded connectors installed from a catalog, signed in with your account | MCP servers configured by hand src |
| Doing work unattended | ||
| Triggered and scheduled workflows | Cron, hooks, polls, durable runs, approvals, at-most-once sending | No src |
| What you see | ||
| Dashboards of live widgets | Yes | No src |
| Packaging and distribution | ||
| Sharing a configured role with other people | Personas in a marketplace, including a private company one | LibreChat shares agents within one instance src |
You can use both
Nothing stops you running one of these for the team and Plexon on your own machine for work that touches your own files.