SHSelfHostIndex

Home Assistant Companion vs Mosquitto

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?
HO Home Assistant Companion Self-hosted backend pairing for Home Assistant mobile apps VS MO Mosquitto Lightweight MQTT message broker
FeatureHome Assistant CompanionMosquitto
CategoryHome AutomationHome Automation
LicenseApache-2.0EPL-2.0
LanguageKotlinC
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM64 MB64 MB
Deploymentsourcedocker, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 3,788★ 11,101
First released20202009
ReplacesGoogle Home appSmartThings

Why pick each one

Choose Home Assistant Companion if…

  • Turns phones into sensors
  • Tight HA integration
Home Assistant Companion details

Choose Mosquitto if…

  • Extremely lightweight
  • Rock-solid reliability
  • Ubiquitous in smart homes
Mosquitto details

Frequently asked questions

Is Home Assistant Companion or Mosquitto better?

Neither is universally better. Mosquitto has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Home Assistant Companion and Mosquitto free and open-source?

Yes. Home Assistant Companion is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Mosquitto under EPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Home Assistant Companion and Mosquitto with Docker?

Home Assistant Companion: check the project docs for container support. Mosquitto: yes.

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