SHSelfHostIndex

Home Assistant Companion 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?
HO Home Assistant Companion Self-hosted backend pairing for Home Assistant mobile apps VS TH ThingsBoard Open-source IoT platform for device management and data
FeatureHome Assistant CompanionThingsBoard
CategoryHome AutomationHome Automation
LicenseApache-2.0Apache-2.0
LanguageKotlinJava
Setup difficultyEasyHard
Min. RAM64 MB2,048 MB
Deploymentsourcedocker, kubernetes, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 3,788★ 22,200
First released20202017
ReplacesGoogle Home appAWS IoT, Azure IoT

Why pick each one

Choose Home Assistant Companion if…

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

Choose ThingsBoard if…

  • Powerful IoT platform
  • Highly customizable dashboards
ThingsBoard details

Frequently asked questions

Is Home Assistant Companion or ThingsBoard better?

Neither is universally better. ThingsBoard has the larger community, while Home Assistant Companion is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

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

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

Can I run Home Assistant Companion and ThingsBoard with Docker?

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

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