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Homebridge vs. Home Assistant in

2024 - WunderTech
Post author:WunderTech

7-9 minuti

In this article, we’re going to look at the differences between

Homebridge vs. Home Assistant.

If you’re looking to build a smart home, there’s a chance that you’re

interested in designing a system around a specific platform. Apple’s
HomeKit and Home Assistant are two extremely popular options,
and Homebridge makes HomeKit a lot more powerful.

While both products are popular, some users may find that one
option is better than the other based on their requirements. For this
reason, we will look at a side-by-side comparison of Homebridge
vs. Home Assistant below.

• Homebridge vs. Home Assistant

• What is Homebridge?

• What is Home Assistant?

• User Interface & Experience – Homebridge vs. Home Assistant

• Integrations – Homebridge vs. Home Assistant

• Pricing – Hubitat vs. Home Assistant

• Community Support – Homebridge vs. Home Assistant

• Conclusion: Homebridge vs. Home Assistant

Homebridge and Home Assistant are both open-source

platforms for smart home integration, but they serve different
purposes. Homebridge is a lightweight solution that bridges
non-HomeKit devices to Apple’s HomeKit ecosystem, allowing
control through iOS devices. Home Assistant, a more
comprehensive platform, supports a wide range of devices
and protocols, offering extensive automation capabilities and
a customizable interface. Your choice will depend on your
desired level of complexity and ecosystem preference.

Before we look at some of the differences between Homebridge vs.

Home Assistant, we will look at exactly what Homebridge and
Home Assistant are.

What is Homebridge?

Homebridge is open-source software that lets users connect smart

home devices that aren’t traditionally supported by Apple’s HomeKit
to the platform. In summary, it sits in the middle of smart home
devices and Apple’s HomeKit and allows device connectivity.

Homebridge is compatible with tons of different smart home

devices but must be installed on a standalone device. The easiest
way to install Homebridge (in my opinion) is Docker, which makes
the overall support of Homebridge very broad.

While Homebridge is a great platform, please keep in mind that

Homebridge is designed to interact with Apple’s HomeKit, and
unlike Home Assistant, it’s not designed for standalone use.

What is Home Assistant?

Home Assistant is free and open-source software that allows users

to add and control various smart home devices. It’s designed to
work locally without requiring access to the cloud.

One of the biggest benefits of Home Assistant is the number of

integrations that are available. While the setup process is different
for each, there’s a pretty good chance that the smart home device
that you are using has some sort of integration natively with Home
Assistant. If it doesn’t, there’s a good chance that HACS (Home
Assistant Community Store) does.
Home Assistant is extremely powerful, and while it’s extremely
similar to Homebridge, it’s also extremely different in other areas.
We will look at the key differences between Homebridge vs. Home
Assistant below.

User Interface & Experience – Homebridge vs. Home Assistant

The user interface and the user experience of Homebridge and

Home Assistant are drastically different due to their general
purpose. Homebridge is designed to interact with Apple’s HomeKit,
so the user interface is really only interacted with for configuration
purposes.

Home Assistant provides a modern UI and is an entirely different

platform than Homebridge. Home Assistant is designed to act as a
smart home automation platform where users can control devices
from an individual interface.

Home Assistant is better compared to Apple HomeKit as opposed

to Homebridge, but the functionality that Homebridge provides is
built into Home Assistant by default. Home Assistant runs on a
variety of platforms including Raspberry Pi, Linux (Proxmox),
Windows, and MacOS devices.

The screenshot below is an example of a customized Home

Assistant dashboard. While the dashboard is extremely functional
and modern, it required a decent amount of configuration that isn’t
required if you use Apple HomeKit.

However, if you wanted to create a dashboard similar in Apple

HomeKit (from a functionality perspective), Homebridge would most
likely be a requirement.

This is the true power of Home Assistant, as you can really

configure it any way you’d like, which is drastically different than
Homebridge/HomeKit.

Another key area where Home Assistant shines is automation.

Custom automation can be created inside Home Assistant by
customizing triggers, conditions, and actions.
Home Assistant also has great add-ons that allow you to use tools
like Node-Red to customize automation even further. Overall, it’s
hard to get better than the UI/tools Home Assistant provides from
an automation perspective.

Integrations – Homebridge vs. Home Assistant

Homebridge and Home Assistant both support tons of different

smart home devices and since they’re both Z-wave and Zigbee
compatible, there are thousands of different devices that can be
added to both.

Please keep in mind that if you’re using Homebridge to connect to

HomeKit, you can configure a Z-wave or Zigbee controller natively
in HomeKit as opposed to going through Homebridge. With that
said, you will most likely have better Z-wave/Zigbee hub
compatibility with Homebridge.

When adding a device to Homebridge, you can search for different

plugins to install by accessing the Plugins page.

In Home Assistant, you can add an integration and then search for
tons of different types of devices or services.
To take it one step further, if Home Assistant doesn’t natively
support your device, installing HACS gives you access to different
repositories where you can add different types of devices.

Since Home Assistant is really designed to operate as a

dashboard, you must purchase a Z-wave or Zigbee hardware
module that works with Home Assistant, which is similar to how
Homebridge and Apple HomeKit work.

Pricing – Hubitat vs. Home Assistant

Assuming you have a device to run Home Assistant on, it’s entirely
free. Homebridge is designed to work with Apple HomeKit, so you
must have a compatible device to run HomeKit on in order for
Homebridge to work.

Overall, Home Assistant has a much, much bigger community. This

is important because it can lead to better support in terms of
questions that have already been answered or tutorials that have
been created. While Homebridge has a great community, it is much
smaller than Home Assistants.

Conclusion: Homebridge vs. Home Assistant

This article looked at Homebridge vs. Home Assistant. Homebridge

and Home Assistant are drastically different products. In summary,
if you want to implement Homebridge, it’s most likely because you
are using Apple HomeKit.

However, Home Assistant is a great alternative to Apple HomeKit,

and in my opinion, it’s a lot more powerful than HomeKit.
Homebridge makes HomeKit a lot more powerful, but if you want
true customization with integration into thousands of devices, go
with Home Assistant.

Thanks for checking out the article on Homebridge vs. Home

Assistant. If you have any questions on Homebridge vs. Home
Assistant, please leave them in the comments!