Home Assistantvs
Amazon Alexa
Amazon Alexa: Amazon's voice-controlled smart home ecosystem
Home Assistant
Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first
As of 30 August 2026, Home Assistant is free to use. Home Assistant is an open-source home automation platform that runs on any machine. Softwr lists it under Smart Home. Home Assistant is launched in 2013, available on Linux, Self-hosted, macOS, Windows.
Overview
What Home Assistant does
Home Assistant is an open-source home automation platform that runs on any machine. It allows you to track and control all devices at home and automate control. It focuses on local control and privacy, with no reliance on cloud services.
What people use it for
- Home automation
- Energy monitoring
- Security systems
- Device integration
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about 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
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Home Assistant
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- Home AssistantvsGoogle Home
Google Home: Google's smart home platform with Google Assistant
- Home AssistantvsApple HomeKit
Apple HomeKit: Apple's secure smart home platform integrated with Siri
- Home AssistantvsNest
Nest: Google's smart home hardware and software ecosystem
Pricing
What Home Assistant costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Community Edition
Free
- Unlimited devices
- Full automation
- Local control
Capabilities
Features
Local Control
Privacy First
Automation Engine
Custom Integrations
150+ integrations
Integration with 150+ integrations
Voice Control
Integration with Voice Control
Mobile App
Integration with Mobile App
REST API
Integration with REST API
Linux support
Available on Linux
Docker support
Available on Docker
Raspberry Pi support
Available on Raspberry Pi
MacOS support
Available on macOS
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
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.
SourceAre 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.
SourceBehind it
Who makes Home Assistant
- Company
- Home Assistant
- Based in
- International Community
- Founders
- Paulus Schoutsen, Pascal Vizeli
Timeline
Home Assistant over time
Keep looking
Where to go from Home Assistant
- Home Assistant alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Home Assistant pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Home Assistant badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Smart Home softwareThe full category
- Best Smart Home softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Smart Home software for
Compare Home Assistant with
- Tasmota
- Apple HomeKit
- Node-RED
- Roomba
- Eufy Security
- OpenHAB
- Shelly
- ESPHome
- Hubitat Elevation
- Losant
- SmartThings
- SwitchBot
- Particle
- Philips Hue
- Ring
- Roomba
- Shelly
- SmartThings
Other Smart Home software
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Home Assistant, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Home Assistant
Home Assistant alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Home Assistant pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Home Assistant
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Home Assistant badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
Best Smart Home software alternatives
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