ApexCharts Card vs ThingsBoard
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted home automation options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
ApexCharts Card
Advanced graphing card for Home Assistant dashboards
VS
ThingsBoard
Open-source IoT platform for device management and data
| Feature | ApexCharts Card | ThingsBoard |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Home Automation | Home Automation |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | TypeScript | Java |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 32 MB | 2,048 MB |
| Deployment | source | docker, kubernetes, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,838 | ★ 22,200 |
| First released | 2021 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Grafana panels | AWS IoT, Azure IoT |
Why pick each one
Choose ApexCharts Card if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Active community (1.8k GitHub stars)
- Written in TypeScript
- Tiny footprint — runs in 32 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is ApexCharts Card or ThingsBoard better?
Neither is universally better. ThingsBoard has the larger community, while ApexCharts Card is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are ApexCharts Card and ThingsBoard free and open-source?
Yes. ApexCharts Card is licensed under MIT and ThingsBoard under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run ApexCharts Card and ThingsBoard with Docker?
ApexCharts Card: check the project docs for container support. ThingsBoard: yes.