Hosted vs self-hosted
Both modes ship the same intelligence layers, the same seven MCP tools, and the same dashboard. The differences are about ops, billing, and team features — not about what the agent can do.
The intelligence engine is one codebase. Self-hosted and hosted run the same Python — same parsers, same git analysis, same wiki generation, same MCP tools. Pick whichever fits your team.
Side-by-side
| Self-hosted | Hosted (repowise.dev) | |
|---|---|---|
| Install | pip install repowise | None — sign in with GitHub |
| Storage | Local SQLite + LanceDB under .repowise/ | Managed Postgres + R2 |
| MCP server | Local stdio process | Hosted HTTP endpoint, one URL for any editor |
| Auto-sync | Hooks, watch, your own webhook server | GitHub App push-sync (automatic) |
| Multi-repo workspaces | Yes | Yes |
| Cross-repo intelligence | Yes (per workspace) | Yes (federated across all your repos) |
| Dashboard | repowise serve on localhost:3000 | repowise.dev/dashboard |
| Auth | None (local) | Supabase (GitHub OAuth, email magic link) |
| Team features | — | Member management, shared workspaces |
| Billing | Free, AGPL | Free tier + Pro |
| GitHub App for private repos | — | One-click installer |
| Security scanning | — | CVE-aware vulnerability layer |
| Privacy | Code never leaves your machine | Stored encrypted in our infrastructure; BYOK keeps LLM calls direct |
| Pro-only on hosted | — | Semantic search, docs explorer, coverage page, federated workspace chat |
Same agent experience
Whichever you pick, your AI agent gets:
- The same seven MCP tools.
- The same proactive
PreToolUse/PostToolUsehooks (if you're using Claude Code). - The same auto-generated
CLAUDE.md(withgenerate-claude-mdon self-hosted, automatic on hosted).
The hosted MCP endpoint adds federated workspace queries —
repo="all" against your entire org's repos in one call.
Pick self-hosted if
- Your code can't leave your network.
- You're an individual or small team and don't want a billing relationship.
- You want full control over the LLM provider, model, and embedding pipeline.
- You're comfortable with a Python install and one of the auto-sync options.
Pick hosted if
- You want zero ops — managed indexing, managed webhooks, push-sync.
- You want federated cross-repo intelligence across your whole org without coordinating workspace setup yourself.
- You want team features (shared workspaces, member roles) and billing.
- You want the security-scanning layer and Pro analysis pages (semantic search, docs explorer, coverage, federated chat).
Hybrid is fine. Run self-hosted on a laptop for one private repo and hosted for everything else — same MCP protocol, same tool names. Your agent doesn't care which server answers.
Self-hosted under the hood
The hosted frontend (Next.js + Supabase Auth) talks to a hosted
FastAPI backend over a typed REST client; it imports presentational
components from @repowise-dev/ui and types from @repowise-dev/types,
the same packages the OSS web UI uses. There's no fork — both modes
share the engine.
Workspace MCP mode
One MCP server, every repo. Pass repo="backend" to target a specific workspace repo, or repo="all" to federate a query across the entire workspace.
Connecting your IDE
Mint an API key on the hosted dashboard and paste a snippet — Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop, VS Code, and Windsurf supported.