Can CartoDB read from tables/data hosted on a local machine and not necessarily uploaded to CartoDB's website?
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4 Answers
The CartoDB code is available on GitHub and you can run it on your own server but if that's what you want or need you should really look at the enterprise options Radek mentioned.
If you absolutely must host it yourself you will need a specific version of Ubuntu and very specific versions of Ruby, Python, Node, Postgres and GIS libraries. It's a huge hassle and the documentation ranges from non-existent to out of date.
I set it up for a client once who insisted that everything be in house, despite being warned of the complexity. Now a year later he has an out of date version of CartoDB and is realizing that he should've just paid for the service.
TLDR: Yes, you can host it locally, but it's a huge task.
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I've seen Torque but haven't used it yet. When I set up CartoDB Torque wasn't out yet. Nov 18, 2014 at 21:47
CartoDB is primarly offered as SAAS (Software as a Service) and their basic offerings are hosted. This means that if you have any of these accounts: http://cartodb.com/pricing/ then you cannot host it on your own server.
However if you'd purchase Enterprise edition http://cartodb.com/enterprise/, then it is possible to host CartoDB on your own machine. This is called
- "On-premise" You can install CartoDB on your servers so all code is stored on machines that you manage yourself
hope this helps Radek
answered Nov 18, 2014 at 14:34
Yes, this is possible. In fact I just completed setting up a CartoDB local server from the open source distribution and local OpenStreetMap tile server on Ubuntu 12.04. All access methods of CartoDB work locally including embedded maps and VizJSON access in Javascript. The instructions on various websites are hit or miss and there is no source that is 100% accurate for the entire process.
For example, I tried an automated OSM install script and it failed with PosgreSQL version conflicts (9.3 installed from CartoDB and the script assumed 9.1). I had to revert to installing OSM manually using other instructions that also had some issues with the instructions for Apache2.
It can be done. It is not easy. I have about 20 years of on and off Unix experience and have only rarely used Linux and it took me about 2 man weeks of effort to get it all working. The good thing is that I now have a VMWare image I can clone for production.
My motivation for the local solution is that I needed an in-flight data system in areas that I could not depend on an Internet connection.
I have contemplated making a VMWare image available for public download as long as it does not violate any terms of use.
Pre-built docker images like https://github.com/sverhoeven/docker-cartodb make it very easy to setup cartodb. docker run -d -p 80:80 -h localhost sverhoeven/cartodb will start a local instance accessible with http://localhost
