head to head · open source
espectre vs UI
espectre has 9,728 GitHub stars, 739 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped yesterday. UI has 2,081 stars, 422 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. espectre leads on adoption by 367% (9,728 vs 2,081 stars). espectre is written in Python under GPL-3.0; UI is written in JavaScript under MIT. espectre has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, UI 20%. espectre was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (home-assistant), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| espectre | UI | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.7K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 739 | ⑂ 422 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick espectre if
- You weight community size — 9.7K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick UI if
- You want the UI feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and UI fits your workflow better
About espectre
ESPectre Turn an ESP32 into a private, local Wi Fi motion sensor. When someone moves through a room, they change the way Wi Fi signals travel through it. ESPectre reads those changes and reports motion in real time. No camera, no microphone, no wearable, and no dedicated radar hardware: just a supported ESP32 and the Wi Fi network already in the room. ESPectre is an open source platform that brings together ready to flash firmware, an embeddable C++ SDK, a MicroPython implementation, browser tools, a host CLI, an open dataset, open model weights, and the research workflow used to build and validate the…
read the full espectre overview →
About UI
UI Lovelace Minimalist [!IMPORTANT] Looking for New Maintainers! This project is in need of new maintainers! The current maintainers are no longer actively working on it, and without fresh leadership, we may be forced to shut down the project and its associated Discord server. If you're passionate about this project and would like to take over its development and community management, we’d love to hear from you! Join us on Discord to discuss further: Thread Message Or reach out on GitHub Discussions: GitHub discussion Thank you for considering helping keep this project alive and thriving! 🙌 It's kind of hard to…
More in Miscellaneous
Related comparisons
More Internet of Things (IoT) projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Internet of Things (IoT) field.
Frequently asked questions
Is espectre or UI more popular?
espectre has 9,728 GitHub stars and UI has 2,081. espectre has the larger community by that measure.
Are espectre and UI free?
Both are open source. espectre is licensed under GPL-3.0 and UI under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between espectre and UI?
espectre is written in Python and UI in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, espectre or UI?
Choose espectre if you want the larger community (9,728 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose UI if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.