card-mod 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?
card-mod
Apply custom CSS styles to Home Assistant Lovelace cards
VS
ThingsBoard
Open-source IoT platform for device management and data
| Feature | card-mod | 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 | ★ 1,773 | ★ 22,200 |
| First released | 2019 | 2017 |
| Replaces | proprietary dashboard theming tools | AWS IoT, Azure IoT |
Why pick each one
Choose card-mod 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 card-mod or ThingsBoard better?
Neither is universally better. ThingsBoard has the larger community, while card-mod is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are card-mod and ThingsBoard free and open-source?
Yes. card-mod is licensed under MIT and ThingsBoard under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run card-mod and ThingsBoard with Docker?
card-mod: check the project docs for container support. ThingsBoard: yes.