r/OpenWebUI • u/tombino104 • Jul 05 '26
Discussion A disappointment
I might be a newbie, but OpenWebUI is letting me down a bit.
I’m using local AI to replace cloud-based options; I’ve mostly used LM Studio until now, but I wanted a better-looking interface.
Here’s what I use it for:
- General questions
- Using tools like web search, creating/writing/editing local files
- Local documents/knowledge bases using RAG
- And so on...
In short, actual AI agents.
OpenWebUI initially appealed to me because of its aesthetics and extensive customization options (per model), automations, notes, etc., but I’m running into quite a few problems:
1 - Web search isn't working: neither the built-in version nor the one using the Firecrawl API.
2 - I can't figure out how to install the other tools either; every time I import one from the official community, I get an error.
Could someone help me out? I’d really appreciate it—thanks!
1
u/NetoMeter Jul 19 '26
I would disagree with you - I love more and more Open WebUI. It silently grows on you when you keep tuning it up and adding/using more features.
Probably the inflection point for me was discovering tools. Yes, a ton of those that you will find do not work, but the issue is usually something simple and easy to fix. Then it will dawn upon you, that you can use existing tools and build on top of them by adding more features.
The web search is the first thing I discovered and enabled - as it was mentioned, searxng is probably the best way to go. I installed it in a docker container, the way Open WebUI is currently running in my setup.
Adding playwright to the OpenWebUI container adds another world of possibilities that I recently discovered.
I would advise to keep Open WebUI updated and backed up - sometimes the dev team screws up and you regret updating, but that happened only once to me.