Metabase's Cloud team evaluated self-hostable AI chat frontends (Open WebUI, LobeChat, LibreChat) and chose LibreChat for its multi-provider support and first-class MCP integration. They connected GitHub, Notion, Grafana, and their own Metabase MCP server, contributed upstream bug fixes for OAuth refresh flows and memory features, and built LibreBot — a Slack agent that routes questions across Linear, Metabase, Notion, GitHub, Grafana, and Slack automatically. Key lessons include the importance of understanding the underlying system when self-hosting beta OSS, the compounding value of combining multiple MCP tools, and the limitations of MCP servers being only as good as the APIs they wrap.
Table of contents
Fighting AI login sprawlLibreChat vs LobeChat vs Open WebUI: evaluation criteriaLibreChat won on operability, not looksMCP compatibility was the whole ballgameWhat broke, and how we got around itContributing fixes back upstreamEnter the Slack agentWhat I’d tell my past selfMore from Metabase Engineering7.2K Impressions