Yes its actually very simple. You need to set the following settings:
Xdb.Enabled
set to falseXdb.Tracking.Enabled
set to true
That will disable Xdb, but still allow the personalization rules to run on renderings.
Note that this applies to 8.1 and above only. In 8.0 you would have to keep Xdb.Enabled
set to true and remove the MongoDb connection strings. It will generate a lot of errors in the logs and is not a supported way of running it. But it does work.
Disabling xDB like this means, you do not need an xDB license.
Reference: Sitecore in CMS Only Mode