head to head · open source
Home Assistant vs homie-esp8266
Home Assistant has 90,832 GitHub stars, 38,710 forks, 3,527 open issues and last shipped yesterday. homie-esp8266 has 1,374 stars, 305 forks, 89 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Home Assistant leads on adoption by 6,511% (90,832 vs 1,374 stars). Home Assistant is written in Python under Apache-2.0; homie-esp8266 is written in HTML under MIT. Home Assistant has attracted 43% as many forks as stars, homie-esp8266 22%. Home Assistant was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (home-automation, iot, mqtt), 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 | homie-esp8266 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-03-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 39K | ⑂ 305 |
| 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 homie-esp8266 if
- You want the homie-esp8266 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and homie-esp8266 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 homie-esp8266
homie esp8266 is an MIT licensed Arduino framework that implements the Homie MQTT convention on ESP8266 and ESP32 boards, for developers building self hosted home automation and IoT devices that report to an MQTT broker.
read the full homie-esp8266 overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Home Assistant or homie-esp8266 more popular?
Home Assistant has 90,832 GitHub stars and homie-esp8266 has 1,374. Home Assistant has the larger community by that measure.
Are Home Assistant and homie-esp8266 free?
Both are open source. Home Assistant is licensed under Apache-2.0 and homie-esp8266 under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Home Assistant and homie-esp8266?
Home Assistant is written in Python and homie-esp8266 in HTML. 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 homie-esp8266?
Choose Home Assistant if you want the larger community (90,832 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose homie-esp8266 if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.