ESPHome vs WLED
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?
Compare ESPHome with
choose an app… Home Assistant Frigate ntfy Homebridge Tasmota ThingsBoard EMQX Frigate NVR Companion go2rtc Zigbee2MQTT Mosquitto HACS Home Assistant Operating System evcc Scrypted Mushroom Piper Bubble Card OpenMQTTGateway Domoticz Companion DZVents Hyperion Domoticz Home Assistant Companion ESPEasy Sonoff DIY Tools Gladys Assistant Mozilla WebThings Gateway Home Assistant Supervisor SmartApp Bridge ioBroker Z-Wave JS UI openHAB AppDaemon Domoticz Plugin Hub Jeedom OpenHAB Cloud Zwave-JS Server FHEM
Compare WLED with
choose an app… Home Assistant Frigate ntfy Homebridge Tasmota ThingsBoard EMQX Frigate NVR Companion go2rtc Zigbee2MQTT Mosquitto HACS Home Assistant Operating System evcc Scrypted Mushroom Piper Bubble Card OpenMQTTGateway Domoticz Companion DZVents Hyperion Domoticz Home Assistant Companion ESPEasy Sonoff DIY Tools Gladys Assistant Rhasspy Mozilla WebThings Gateway openWakeWord Button Card Awtrix Light OpenBeken Home Assistant Supervisor SmartApp Bridge deCONZ ApexCharts Card OpenRemote diyHue card-mod Mini Media Player TinyTuya Server Home Assistant Floorplan HA-Bridge ESPresense Govee2MQTT ioBroker OpenEnergyMonitor Emoncms HASS.Agent Wyoming Satellite Z-Wave JS UI OwnTracks Recorder LocalTuya openHAB Frigate Cards Python Matter Server OpenHASP Tasmoadmin AppDaemon Ring-MQTT EMHASS Domoticz Plugin Hub Zigbee2MQTT Frontend OpenSprinkler Grott Growatt Monitor Zigbee2MQTT Assistant SIP Irrigation Control Jeedom Node-RED Dashboard 2.0 OpenHAB Cloud OpenVoiceOS SmartIR Theengs Gateway Zwave-JS Server SOLECTRUS SmartHomeNG Victron Venus OS Bridge Dahua2MQTT Streamline Smart Home Dashboards Calaos ESPHome Web Tools Habapp FHEM LHA Onloc Find My Device
Feature ESPHome WLED Category Home Automation Home Automation License GPL-3.0 MIT Language C++ C++ Setup difficulty Medium Easy Min. RAM 512 MB 16 MB Deployment docker, bare-metal binary, source GitHub stars ★ 11,505 ★ 18,518 First released 2018 2016 Replaces SmartThings Philips Hue
Why pick each one
Choose ESPHome if… No coding needed for devices Great with Home Assistant OTA updates ESPHome details Choose WLED if… Easy to flash and use Vibrant effects WLED details
Frequently asked questions Is ESPHome or WLED better? WLED is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider ESPHome if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are ESPHome and WLED free and open-source? Yes. ESPHome is licensed under GPL-3.0 and WLED under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run ESPHome and WLED with Docker? ESPHome: yes. WLED: check the project docs for container support.