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Smart Home · head to head

Home Assistant vs Lely Horizon

Home Assistant logo

Home Assistant

Smart Home

Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Lely Horizon logo

Lely Horizon

Agriculture

Dairy herd management software billed per lactating cow that only runs a Lely robot barn

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Home Assistant has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Home Assistant add-ons run only on Home Assistant Operating System installations, and Container installations have no access to them; Lely Horizon billing is per lactating cow, so the software cost grows with the herd indefinitely and a farm that expands from 120 to 200 cows takes a permanent software cost increase it did not budget when it bought the robots.
  • They diverge on capability: Home Assistant covers Local Control, Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Home Assistant and Lely Horizon actually diverge.

Attributes where Home Assistant and Lely Horizon differ
AttributeHome AssistantLely Horizon
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelopen-sourcequote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Raspberry Pi, MacOS, WindowsWeb, iOS, Android, Windows
CategorySmart HomeAgriculture
Founded2013Unknown

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Home Assistant

  • Local Control
  • Privacy First
  • Automation Engine
  • Custom Integrations
  • 150+ integrations
  • Voice Control
  • Mobile App
  • REST API

Only in Lely Horizon

  • Per-cow milking data
  • Health and fertility alerts
  • Work list generation
  • Feed management
  • Farm Management Support
  • Multi-site view
  • Mobile alerts
  • Reporting and benchmarking

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Home Assistant

  • Home automationnot Lely Horizon
  • Energy monitoringnot Lely Horizon
  • Security systemsnot Lely Horizon
  • Device integrationnot Lely Horizon

Lely Horizon

  • A 180-cow dairy running four Astronaut robots that needs the attention list to replace walking the barn twice a daynot Home Assistant
  • A farm adding Vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milkingnot Home Assistant
  • A dairy manager tracking transition cow health across two sites from one accountnot Home Assistant
  • A Lely advisor benchmarking a client's robot utilisation against comparable farms before recommending a fourth boxnot Home Assistant

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Home Assistant

  • Add-ons run only on Home Assistant Operating System installations, and Container installations have no access to them
  • Thread and Z-Wave are controlled by add-ons, so a Container install has no out-of-the-box support for either
  • A Container installation means bringing your own Linux host with Docker and handling updates by hand
  • The recommended install path expects dedicated hardware such as a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 with at least 2 GB of RAM, an Odroid, or an x86-64 machine
  • Every documented hardware option requires a wired Ethernet connection

Lely Horizon

  • Billing is per lactating cow, so the software cost grows with the herd indefinitely and a farm that expands from 120 to 200 cows takes a permanent software cost increase it did not budget when it bought the robots.
  • Horizon is not optional: the barn equipment depends on it, so the subscription cannot be cancelled in a difficult year the way a discretionary analytics tool can, which removes any negotiating position at renewal.
  • It manages Lely equipment and effectively nothing else, so a farm running a Lely robot alongside a conventional parlour or another manufacturer's feeder ends up with two systems and no combined cow record.
  • The migration from the older T4C system was compulsory and rebuilt the interface and reporting, and farms that had years of T4C reports and custom lists found the equivalents either missing or shaped differently, costing retraining time.
  • Everything is bought and supported through the local Lely Center, so pricing, response time and the quality of advice vary by dealer with no published rate card, and a farm with a weak local centre has no practical alternative supplier.

Pricing, plan by plan

Home Assistant

Free
  • Community EditionFree
    • Unlimited devices
    • Full automation
    • Local control

Lely Horizon

On request
  • Horizon Basic$undefined/month
    • Core robot operation and monitoring
    • Per lactating cow subscription
    • Invoiced digitally by the local Lely Center
  • Horizon Control$undefined/month
    • Adds herd management and fertility tooling
    • Per lactating cow subscription
  • Horizon Advance$undefined/month
    • Adds analysis, benchmarking and advisor tooling
    • Per lactating cow subscription

Which should you pick?

Choose Home Assistant if

  • You need local control.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Raspberry Pi, MacOS, Windows.
  • You also want privacy first.
Home Assistant review

Choose Lely Horizon if

  • You need per-cow milking data.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
  • You also want health and fertility alerts.
Lely Horizon review

Questions people ask

Is Home Assistant or Lely Horizon better?
Neither clearly leads. Home Assistant starts at Free and Lely Horizon at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Home Assistant or Lely Horizon?
Home Assistant has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Home Assistant and On request for Lely Horizon.
Does Home Assistant or Lely Horizon run on more platforms?
Home Assistant runs on Linux, Docker, Raspberry Pi, MacOS, Windows. Lely Horizon runs on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
Can I use Home Assistant for free?
Yes. Home Assistant has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Lely Horizon starts at On request.
What is Home Assistant best used for?
Home Assistant is most often used for home automation, energy monitoring, security systems, device integration. Of those, home automation and energy monitoring are not what Lely Horizon is typically brought in for.
What can Home Assistant do that Lely Horizon cannot?
Home Assistant covers Local Control, Privacy First, Automation Engine, Custom Integrations. Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, Health and fertility alerts, Work list generation, Feed management.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Home Assistant: Does Home Assistant software cost anything?

Home Assistant core software is completely free and open source. It is operated by the Open Home Foundation as a non-profit, which means it cannot be sold or acquired. Commercial products like Home Assistant hardware are sold separately.

Source
Lely Horizon: How is Lely Horizon priced?

As a subscription per lactating cow milked by the Astronaut robots, in Basic, Control and Advance tiers. Lely does not publish rates; the local Lely Center quotes them.

Home Assistant: Are there paid products from Home Assistant?

Home Assistant offers official hardware products including Home Assistant Green, Connect ZBT-2, Connect ZWA-2, and Voice Preview Edition, which have separate pricing. Nabu Casa provides commercial services as an official partner.

Source
Lely Horizon: Can I run Horizon without Lely robots?

No. It is the control and management layer for Lely equipment and has no meaningful function without it.

Lely Horizon: What happened to T4C?

Horizon replaced it. Migration was required rather than optional, and reporting was rebuilt rather than ported.

Lely Horizon: Does the subscription end when the robot is paid off?

No. It continues for as long as the robots are milking, which is the cost most robot business cases understate.

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