Installing Metabase locally
By far the easiest way to try out Metabase is to install it locally. Installing Metabase locally means that you are running the program from your own computer, rather than off some external server (for those unfamiliar with servers, you can think of them as computers that are always running and accessible via the internet). While running Metabase locally is not the ideal way to run Metabase, it was created to be perfect for beginners who just want to kick the tires, try it out, and gain familiarity with the product. I'll go into detail about its limitations later in this chapter, but for now, let's go ahead and install it.
Installing on Mac
To familiarize yourself with Metabase's website, head to https://www.metabase.com. There you'll see a Get Started button. Click that and you'll be taken to a page with all the various installation options, with their Metabase Cloud hosted version highlighted by default. Click the Host it...