It's bigger than a desktop operating system lol

Actually that's not funny. I had to stop using open-webui because of this only reason (and partly because they publish docker images on ghcr.io which is really slow, and together with such huge image size this result in hours downloading on each update).

@powerman

You can clone the source code and build the Docker image on your side. I don't use Docker, and the downloads are fast. Since I've already downloaded and installed the dependent libraries, the process is quick. As I mentioned, I don't use Docker, but I've built Docker images without any problems.

I would also prefer more lightness, as has been reiterated: proposals are welcome.

@rgaricano I'm using kind of IaaC where all services are installed and updated using docker compose and dependabot-managed updates. So, building from source means actually building in a docker plus some dependabot-compatible way to detect new versions plus a costly GitHub Actions (that IaaC repo is a private) in case building will take noticeable amount of time (keeping docker cache layers in CI is tricky and with such a huge image will also be costly enough). Honestly, I don't see any usable solution here.

As for proposals - I doubt anyone from outside will be able to find a good way to solve this issue, this task is for core devs. And very likely it'll require fair amount of work to optimize this, which in turn will delay new features. New features are important, no doubt, but they are not an absolute goodness by itself - new features are good because they bring you new users… but this have to be balanced with losing users because of this issue.

I don't see the optimization aspect as being that problematic either.

You just need to install the libraries used (Python and Node) dynamically and on a separate volume.
Dynamically, because there are several that may never be used (they are mutually exclusive), these can be loaded only when needed.
If we install them on a separate permanent volume, we gain the advantage of only needing to download the updated ones (which isn't common, and can be done with scripts); that volume and/or the updates could also be downloaded as a package if necessary.