Software Alternatives & Reviews

ioBroker VS ESPHome

Compare ioBroker VS ESPHome and see what are their differences

ioBroker logo ioBroker

flexible and modular application for the IoT and Smarthome

ESPHome logo ESPHome

ESPHome is a system to control your ESP8266/ESP32 by simple yet powerful configuration files and control them remotely through Home Automation systems.
  • ioBroker Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-07-22

More than 500 different modules(adapters) that can be interconnected with each other. E.g. Homematic or KNX can control HUE or sonos and vice versa.

  • ESPHome Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-12

ioBroker

$ Details
free
Platforms
Linux Windows Mac OSX REST API JavaScript
Release Date
2015 October

ESPHome

Website
esphome.io
$ Details
Platforms
-
Release Date
-

ioBroker videos

ioBroker: Rock64 Langzeit-Review - Bereue ich den Kauf?

More videos:

  • Review - iObroker Teil1 | Grundlagen/Übersicht | Review Smart Home Kombination 2019 [GERMAN/DEUTSCH]
  • Review - SMARTE ZENTRALE | ioBroker als kostenlose SmartHome-Automation

ESPHome videos

Getting Started with ESPHome and Home Assistant

More videos:

  • Review - ESPHome vs Tasmota - Speedtests and Features | Which one should I choose?
  • Review - Home Automation With Home Assistant and ESPHome - First Steps

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to ioBroker and ESPHome)
Data Dashboard
79 79%
21% 21
Automation
0 0%
100% 100
Home
75 75%
25% 25
Video
100 100%
0% 0

Questions and Answers

As answered by people managing ioBroker and ESPHome.

What makes your product unique?

ioBroker's answer

  • Multi-Host support for Scalability and better connectivity (you can connect many ioBroker hosts together),
  • Comprehensive visualization(Vis, iQontrol, ...),
  • Flexibility (jsonl for simplisity as DB or Redis as high performance DB),
  • ioBroker is highly flexible and customizable...

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

ioBroker's answer

  • Compatibility: ioBroker supports a vast range of devices and protocols, making it one of the most versatile smart home automation systems available. It is compatible with many popular brands and can integrate with virtually any smart device, offering a level of flexibility that might not be available with other platforms.

  • Open Source: As an open-source platform, ioBroker is free to use and continuously updated and improved by a community of developers. This allows for greater customization, transparency, and control over your home automation setup.

  • Scalability: ioBroker is designed to handle complex smart home setups. No matter how many devices you have or plan to add in the future, the platform is designed to scale and manage a large and diverse range of devices efficiently.

  • JavaScript and Blockly support: For those comfortable with programming, ioBroker offers the option to write scripts in JavaScript. For users who prefer a graphical interface, Blockly is available. This versatility can be appealing for both beginners and experienced users.

  • Data Logging: ioBroker has extensive data logging capabilities, allowing users to store, analyze, and visualize data from their smart devices over long periods of time. This can be incredibly valuable for monitoring energy usage, tracking trends, and optimizing your smart home setup.

  • Community and Support: ioBroker has a strong and active community of users and developers who can provide assistance, share ideas, and help troubleshoot any issues you may encounter.

How would you describe your primary audience?

ioBroker's answer

Mostly users are german speaking, but all documentation is primary in english.

What's the story behind your product?

ioBroker's answer

ioBroker is an open-source Internet of Things (IoT) platform that was developed with the aim to provide a unified and flexible solution for smart home automation. It's primarily driven by a community of enthusiasts and developers contributing to its ongoing development and expansion.

The project was initiated to overcome the limitations of existing smart home platforms, particularly the inability of many platforms to integrate with a wide variety of devices and brands. ioBroker was designed with a focus on compatibility, scalability, and flexibility, aiming to provide a solution that can integrate a vast array of smart devices, regardless of manufacturer or protocol, and handle complex home automation setups.

While the platform was initially more popular among the tech-savvy due to its need for more technical involvement, over time, efforts have been made to make it more user-friendly and accessible to a wider audience.

As an open-source project, the ongoing development of ioBroker is dependent on the contributions of its community, including software developers and end-users, who continually work on refining the software, expanding its compatibility with different devices, and improving its features.

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

ioBroker's answer

JavaScript, Redis, Mqtt, MUI-UI.

User comments

Share your experience with using ioBroker and ESPHome. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare ioBroker and ESPHome

ioBroker Reviews

16 Open Source Home Automation Platforms To Use In 2020
ioBroker appeared on the open source home automation spectrum at the beginning of 2017, but it went on to become one of the fastest growing communities in the game. With more than 21,000 users happy to chime in, ioBroker is a strong proposition that offers a total of around 300 integrations. That's great considering that the software is completely free to use. Why not give...
Source: ubidots.com

ESPHome Reviews

We have no reviews of ESPHome yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, ESPHome seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 132 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

ioBroker mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of ioBroker yet. Tracking of ioBroker recommendations started around Mar 2021.

ESPHome mentions (132)

  • ESPHome
    Solid state relay is probably a bad idea with all the extra heat-sinking, extra cost, and chance of getting counterfeits. I do this with ESPHome & a J115F21C12VDCS.9 relay (note only the NO side is rated for 40A resistive): https://i.imgur.com/MqqOkoY.png Choose any of the temperature sensors here for air temperature sensing: https://esphome.io/ Configuration is so easy. For the sensor, just copy the config... - Source: Hacker News / 5 days ago
  • A Custom Zigbee Doorbell
    You might want to take a look at https://esphome.io/ for an easy integration of an ESP32/8266 into home Assistant. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Thoughts, learnings and regrets after three years on Home Assistant
    You can do this with a $30 Sonoff S31 running ESPHome [0]. Since the Sonoff wall switch can run a ping sensor against your server you could create a watchdog automation right on the S31 to shut off the mains power to the S31 switch and turn back on after X seconds. There are other ways you could have the S31 do operational checks but ultimately ESPHome is probably an interesting consideration and supported by tons... - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Fixing a broken smart cat feeder with ESP32
    They're pretty great and compatible with most things. ESPHome [1] is a great resource for getting ESP32's working nicely with HA and you can find lots of projects using it to learn from. You'll likely need to do soldering if you want to connect sensors, batteries and the like. Personally I really like what SEEED Studio [2] does with their ESP32 boards and they have nice docs. 1. https://esphome.io/. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • How to connect a SwiftUI app to NodeMCU ESP32
    Maybe you could set up ESPHome on the ESP32. It might make connecting those components easier, plus a decent web server built in. Then your app can be set up to access data provided by the ESPHome web server. Source: 5 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing ioBroker and ESPHome, you can also consider the following products

Home-Assistant.io - Home Assistant is an open-source home automation platform running on Python 3.

openHAB - "empowering the smart home" - vendor and technology agnostic open source home automation

Tasmota - Alternative firmware for ESP8266 with easy configuration using webUI, OTA updates, automation using timers or rules, expandability and entirely local control over MQTT, HTTP, Serial or KNX.

Google Home - Set up, manage, and control your Chromecast, Chromecast Audio and Google Home devices.

Homeway.io - Free, private, and secure Home Assistant remote access, Alexa and Google Assistant integration, and official Home Assistant iOS and Android remote access. Get started now!

Domoticz - Domoticz is a lightweight Home Automation System