Mushroom 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?
Mushroom
Modern minimalist card collection for Home Assistant dashboards
VS
Mosquitto
Lightweight MQTT message broker
| Feature | Mushroom | Mosquitto |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Home Automation | Home Automation |
| License | Apache-2.0 | EPL-2.0 |
| Language | TypeScript | C |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 32 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | source | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5,098 | ★ 11,101 |
| First released | 2022 | 2009 |
| Replaces | proprietary smart home apps | SmartThings |
Why pick each one
Choose Mushroom if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Mature project with 5.1k GitHub stars
- Written in TypeScript
Choose Mosquitto if…
- Extremely lightweight
- Rock-solid reliability
- Ubiquitous in smart homes
Frequently asked questions
Is Mushroom 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 Mushroom and Mosquitto free and open-source?
Yes. Mushroom is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Mosquitto under EPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Mushroom and Mosquitto with Docker?
Mushroom: check the project docs for container support. Mosquitto: yes.