ESPHome vs Zigbee2MQTT
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 WLED EMQX Frigate NVR Companion go2rtc 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 Zigbee2MQTT with
choose an app… Home Assistant Frigate ntfy Homebridge Tasmota ThingsBoard WLED EMQX Frigate NVR Companion go2rtc 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 Zigbee2MQTT Category Home Automation Home Automation License GPL-3.0 GPL-3.0 Language C++ TypeScript Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 512 MB 256 MB Deployment docker, bare-metal docker, bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 11,505 ★ 15,477 First released 2018 2018 Replaces SmartThings SmartThings
Why pick each one
Choose ESPHome if… No coding needed for devices Great with Home Assistant OTA updates ESPHome details Choose Zigbee2MQTT if… Frees devices from vendor hubs Wide device support Local control Zigbee2MQTT details
Frequently asked questions Is ESPHome or Zigbee2MQTT better? Neither is universally better. Zigbee2MQTT has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are ESPHome and Zigbee2MQTT free and open-source? Yes. ESPHome is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Zigbee2MQTT under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run ESPHome and Zigbee2MQTT with Docker? ESPHome: yes. Zigbee2MQTT: yes.