Technically we do have an open add-on concept, so any host could build a connect add-on if they desired. We don’t have any documentation specific to building a Connect add-on, so development could be tricky and require a lot of back and forth and troubleshooting. To date, no other hosts have ever contacted us about building something like this out. Many popular WordPress hosts out there instead have tried to come up with or improve their own alternatives for local development.
While we do believe and plan on keeping Local free to use for the entire WordPress community, we are a product owned by the WP Engine/Flywheel family. So ultimately assisting with the development of Local Connect add-ons to other hosts will never be a priority. That being said, as mentioned previously there are still many other ways to get sites in and out of Local, including migration plugin options like WP Migrate. We partnered with them to help come up with simpler solutions for moving sites in and out of Local to help accommodate the users hosting elsewhere that aren’t able to rely on Local Connect.