Self-host LaunchDarkly

Feature flags / progressive delivery · Category: git hosting, CI & dev tooling

LaunchDarkly is the dominant feature-flag-as-a-service — define flags, target by user/segment, control percentage rollouts, A/B test, all behind their global edge. The self-hostable replacements all do flags + targeting + percentage rollouts; what they don't fully replicate is LaunchDarkly's edge-evaluation latency (sub-50ms globally) without you running edge nodes yourself.

LaunchDarkly pricing anchor: Foundation $10/seat/mo; Developer $25/seat/mo; Pro custom (typically $0.10-0.30 per MAU).

Unleash Unleash/unleash alive

GitHub: ★ 13.5k · last commit today · 48 open issues
License: Apache-2.0
Core OSS is Apache-2.0; some Enterprise features (advanced segments, change requests) are gated.
Setup time: 20min docker-compose (Node + Postgres)
Monthly cost: $10/mo VPS for the app; SDKs are free.

Migration sketch. Pull `unleashorg/unleash-server` and `postgres:16`. Unleash has an Admin API for bulk-creating flags — write a one-shot script that pulls flags from LaunchDarkly's REST API and POSTs to Unleash. SDK migration: swap `LDClient` for `UnleashClient` in your app code; the API surface is similar. Edge evaluation via Unleash Edge (Rust binary) deployed near your apps for low-latency reads.

Good fit forEngineering teams that want a battle-tested feature-flag platform with a clean self-host story.

Weak atA/B testing depth is shallower than LaunchDarkly Experimentation; pair with PostHog or GrowthBook if experimentation is core.

Flagsmith Flagsmith/flagsmith alive

GitHub: ★ 6.34k · last commit 2d ago · 624 open issues
License: BSD-3-Clause
Core is BSD-3-Clause; SaaS-specific advanced auditing and SCIM are paid.
Setup time: 20min docker-compose (Django + Postgres + InfluxDB optional)
Monthly cost: $10/mo VPS.

Migration sketch. Pull the official compose at docs.flagsmith.com. Flagsmith has a LaunchDarkly importer in its admin UI — provide your LD API key, it imports flags, segments, and environments. Edge proxy (Flagsmith Edge Proxy) for low-latency evaluation; SDKs available for 16+ languages.

Good fit forTeams that want flags + remote config + A/B testing in one tool with a polished Django-based admin UI.

Weak atHeavier stack than Unleash; Edge Proxy is a separate service to operate.

GrowthBook growthbook/growthbook alive

GitHub: ★ 7.74k · last commit 1d ago · 808 open issues
License: MIT
Core is MIT; some Enterprise features (SSO, advanced experimentation) are paid.
Setup time: 20min docker-compose (Node + MongoDB)
Monthly cost: $10/mo VPS.

Migration sketch. Pull `growthbook/growthbook:latest` and a MongoDB instance. GrowthBook's strength is experimentation-first — flags + A/B tests + statistical analysis powered by your existing data warehouse (BigQuery, Snowflake, ClickHouse, Postgres). Migration from LaunchDarkly: API-pull flags, POST to GrowthBook via its Admin API; SDK migration is straightforward. Stats engine reads from your warehouse so you don't need to ship events to GrowthBook itself.

Good fit forTeams that already have an analytics warehouse and want feature-flag + experimentation in one tool.

Weak atMongoDB ops surface; experimentation analysis assumes you have the warehouse pipeline already in place.

In a terminal? npx os-alt launchdarkly prints this table — how the CLI works →