Home Assistant
Runs your smart home on your own hardware, with local control.
Instead of Google Home, Alexa
Screenshot from www.home-assistant.io, taken 2026-10-23, shown to help you recognise the tool. It belongs to its maker. Ask us to remove it.
Anyone with a smart bulb knows the moment the app says it cannot reach the cloud while the bulb sits there in the same room. Home Assistant runs the automations in your own house, so lights still turn on when the internet goes down. It connects thousands of kinds of devices, it is open source, and it comes from the Open Home Foundation, which describes itself as a nonprofit dedicated to keeping smart home technology private, secure and open. It runs on a server, with apps for Android and iOS.
Home Assistant scores a 5 on lock-in, self-direction, power and longevity and a 3 on footprint and delivery.
It has a real learning curve, and you need a small computer to run it, so Delivery is a 3.
Having it means the house runs on a box you own, and the lights come on when the router is off.
- Runs your home on your own hardware, with local control
- Supports thousands of device types
- Has a real learning curve
What stands out
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Side by side. Home Assistant vs Amazon Alexa
For comparison, we also reviewed Amazon Alexa (14/30) as a benchmark.
