Why Self-Hosted AI Analytics Matters

Third-party AI analytics tools send your data to the cloud. Here's why that's a problem — and what to do instead.

By MetricChat Team2/20/2026

Most AI analytics tools have a dirty secret: they send your data to someone else's servers.

The Problem with Cloud AI Analytics

When you use a cloud-based AI analytics tool, your database queries, your business metrics, and your customer data all flow through third-party infrastructure. That means:

  • Your data is exposed. Even with encryption in transit, your data exists on servers you don't control.
  • Compliance gets complicated. HIPAA, SOC 2, GDPR — all of these become harder when data leaves your network.
  • You're paying per query. Every question costs tokens. Heavy usage means heavy bills.

The Self-Hosted Alternative

Self-hosted AI analytics keeps everything inside your network:

  1. Your data never leaves. MetricChat queries your database directly. No data replication. No cloud intermediary.
  2. Run local LLMs. Use Ollama with Llama 3 or Mistral. Zero tokens leave your building. Zero per-query cost.
  3. Full audit trail. Every query, every AI decision, every business rule applied — all logged and traceable.

Who Needs This?

  • Enterprises with strict data governance requirements
  • Healthcare and finance companies under regulatory constraints
  • Any team that doesn't want their competitive data flowing through third-party AI

Getting Started

Deploy MetricChat in 5 minutes:

docker run -d -p 3000:3000 metricchat/metricchat

Your data stays yours. Your AI stays private.