Self-hosted PostHog MCP alternatives
PostHog's MCP server can run locally over stdio, so the process and your project key stay on infrastructure you control, alongside a self-hosted PostHog instance if that is how you run it. The servers below install locally too.
Each runs as a local process. Analytics and database queries still reach whatever backend you point at, so that data travels there, but the server itself and its credentials remain on your machine or network.
The 8 best self-hosted alternatives
Metabase's maintained server installs locally and runs questions, builds dashboards, and queries databases across your instance. The closest self-hosted BI option, with the server under your control.
Set up Metabase →Run locally, the official Firecrawl server turns any website into clean, LLM-ready data through scrape, crawl, map, search, and extract. The crawl reaches out; the server stays yours.
Set up Firecrawl →Installed locally, the official Exa server gives neural web search and clean full-page content. It calls Exa's API to search, but runs as a process you operate.
Set up Exa →Bytebase DBHub runs locally against a SQLite file with execute_sql and search_objects. Zero-dependency, and the database is a file on disk, so analysis stays entirely local.
Set up SQLite (DBHub) →DBHub also self-hosts as a Postgres gateway: pass a DSN and run execute_sql and search_objects against your own database from a local process.
Set up DBHub (Postgres) →The arXiv server runs locally and searches papers, downloads them, and reads full text as markdown. A self-hosted research tool that fetches from arXiv but runs on your machine.
Set up arXiv →Supabase's server installs locally and runs SQL, inspects schema, reads logs, and manages edge functions against a project, from a process you operate yourself.
Set up Supabase →Bright Data's official server runs locally and gives reliable web search and scraping that gets past blocks, CAPTCHAs, and geo-restrictions, with the server process kept on your infrastructure.
Set up Bright Data →
How to choose
All of these run as a local stdio process, the same option PostHog offers. Metabase is the closest self-hosted analytics tool; DBHub on SQLite or Postgres and Supabase let an agent query your own databases in place. Firecrawl, Exa, arXiv, and Bright Data fetch external data, so those calls leave your network even though the server stays local.
FAQ
- Can the PostHog MCP server be self-hosted?
- Yes. PostHog's server is open source and runs locally over stdio, so you can keep the process and project key on your own infrastructure, alongside a self-hosted PostHog instance if you run one.
- Does running the server locally keep my analytics data private?
- It keeps the server process and credentials local. Where the data lives depends on the backend: a self-hosted PostHog or a local SQLite file stays with you, while a hosted backend or a web-scraping call still travels over the network.