head to head · open source
Home Assistant vs button-card
Home Assistant has 90,832 GitHub stars, 38,710 forks, 3,527 open issues and last shipped yesterday. button-card has 2,501 stars, 280 forks, 31 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. Home Assistant leads on adoption by 3,532% (90,832 vs 2,501 stars). Home Assistant is written in Python under Apache-2.0; button-card is written in TypeScript under MIT. Home Assistant has attracted 43% as many forks as stars, button-card 11%. Home Assistant was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (home-automation), 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.
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Side by side
| Home Assistant | button-card | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 39K | ⑂ 280 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Home Assistant if
- You weight community size — 91K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick button-card if
- You want the button-card feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and button-card fits your workflow better
About Home Assistant
Home Assistant is an open source home automation platform that runs locally on devices such as Raspberry Pi or a personal server. It enables users to control and automate smart home devices—including lights, thermostats, locks, and sensors—without relying on cloud services. Built in Python with an asyncio event loop, it emphasizes local processing and data sovereignty, ensuring all device data remains under the user’s control.
read the full Home Assistant overview →
About button-card
button card is a custom Lovelace card for Home Assistant. It presents entities as configurable buttons and supports many options for appearance, actions, and state display. It lives in the Home Assistant ecosystem, specifically the Lovelace UI, and is distributed as a community custom card with stable and development releases.
read the full button-card overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Home Assistant or button-card more popular?
Home Assistant has 90,832 GitHub stars and button-card has 2,501. Home Assistant has the larger community by that measure.
Are Home Assistant and button-card free?
Both are open source. Home Assistant is licensed under Apache-2.0 and button-card under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Home Assistant and button-card?
Home Assistant is written in Python and button-card in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Home Assistant or button-card?
Choose Home Assistant if you want the larger community (90,832 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose button-card if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.