The short answer
- Open WebUI's official migration guide moves 1 partly; 1 thing stays behind. What moves
- 6 public accounts of making this switch: 5 switched, 1 evaluated. Read them
What ChatGPT and Open WebUI cost
List prices from each vendor's pricing page, as stored in the Stackcut catalog. Each price links its source.
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly (per month) | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT Plus | $20/mo | not shown | $20/month billed monthly |
| ChatGPT Pro ($200 tier) | $200/mo | not shown | Pro 20X |
| ChatGPT Business | $25/user/mo | $20/user/mo | Per user; 2+ users |
- ChatGPT free plan: Unlimited text chats with guardrails; limited uploads, image generation, voice, deep research chatgpt.com
- Open WebUI free plan: Free self-hosted openwebui.com
Open WebUI's plans aren't in the Stackcut catalog yet; check Open WebUI's own site.
Moving from ChatGPT to Open WebUI
What Open WebUI's importer carries over, what it leaves behind, and any help it offers switchers.
To Open WebUI
Official guide docs.openwebui.com · Tools: Open WebUI built-in chat import
Moves: ChatGPT conversations (messages, roles, structure) (partial). docs.openwebui.com
Doesn't move: Other account data in the ChatGPT export ZIP beyond chat history (the ZIP also holds account data). docs.openwebui.com
Watch out for:
- Re-importing the same file creates duplicates because each import gets fresh chat IDs docs.openwebui.com
- No built-in converter for Claude or Gemini exports; only ChatGPT exports are auto-detected docs.openwebui.com
- Very large files have no hard size limit but take longer, depending on server memory docs.openwebui.com
Community guide github.com · Tools: chatgpt-to-open-webui (convert.py)
Moves: ChatGPT conversations (full). github.com
Watch out for:
- No progress or feedback during import; large imports take several minutes github.com
- Back up webui.db before importing; malformed conversations are skipped (check terminal output for skips) github.com
- Converter records imported chat IDs in ~/chatgpt/imported.json to avoid re-importing github.com
From each destination's own migration docs and switching pages, plus community write-ups where no official guide exists, each checked against its page. Confirm terms on the linked page before you rely on an offer.
People who moved from ChatGPT to Open WebUI
6 public accounts of leaving ChatGPT: 5 switched, 1 evaluated. Summaries are ours; each links the original, and each was checked against its page before it appeared here.
(Note: the post never names ChatGPT explicitly.) A homelab author documents a two-month build of a fully local AI stack with Open WebUI as the daily-driver interface, ending all mandatory AI subscriptions; cloud models remain only as a rarely-used pay-per-use fallback. codysandahl.com
A three-year free-ChatGPT user self-hosts Open WebUI on Docker, fronts it with OpenRouter's zero-data-retention models, and keeps frontier access without a subscription; his GPU proved too weak for fully local models. andrewmarder.net
An r/LocalLLaMA poster shares a Python script that reformats ChatGPT exports for Open WebUI import, preserving dates and conversation tree structure, after finding the built-in import handled the format incorrectly. Reddit
An r/ChatGPTCoding user weighs replacing a ChatGPT Plus/Pro subscription with Open WebUI connected to GPT-5 via the OpenAI API, to escape ChatGPT's context and reasoning caps; no switch has happened yet. Reddit
An HN commenter from April 2024 reports using Open WebUI with the OpenAI APIs as their own pay-per-use GPT-4 setup, calling it functionally identical to the ChatGPT interface. Hacker News
A DEV Community author reports cancelling their ChatGPT subscription in April 2024 in favor of self-hosted Open WebUI running Llama 3 via Ollama, with OpenAI, GroqCloud (free tier) and their own Cloudflare Workers AI as fallback APIs. DEV Community
How to leave ChatGPT
Export first, then cancel. Every step links the vendor's own help page, checked on the date shown.
How to leave ChatGPT
Export first
- Chat history and account data: Settings → Data controls → Export data → Export → Confirm export (ZIP). It arrives by email or SMS and can take up to 7 days; the link expires 24 hours after you get it. help.openai.com
Cancel
- Export your data first (see export).
- Settings → Billing → Cancel plan → Cancel.
- Subscriptions bought through the Apple App Store are cancelled with Apple; deleting your ChatGPT account doesn't cancel them.
- Takes effect
- Paid features stay until the end of the current billing period. Cancel at least 24 hours before the next billing date.
- Refunds
- Cancelling stops future renewals but doesn't refund earlier charges.
FAQ
Can I move my ChatGPT data to Open WebUI?
Open WebUI's official guide moves: ChatGPT conversations (messages, roles, structure). It doesn't move: Other account data in the ChatGPT export ZIP beyond chat history (the ZIP also holds account data). docs.openwebui.com
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find_alternatives({"vendor": "ChatGPT"})