# Comparison to Home Assistant **URL:** \ **Category:** Off-Topic\ **Created:** [December 10, 2023, 1:43pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931 "2023-12-10T13:43:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![japhias](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/japhias/32/41524_2.png) [@japhias](https://community.openhab.org/u/japhias)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2023, 1:43pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/1 "2023-12-10T13:43:01Z")
Hi all, I’m using openhab for many years now. But I really think to move to Home Assistant, because of the bigger Community and more ‘easy to use’ addons and more bindings. From my Point of View, openhab ist much better in configuration of UIs. If you Invest enough time you can get really beautiful visualization. What other advantages so you see for openhab? ---
**Author:** ![binderth](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/binderth/32/56257_2.png) [@binderth](https://community.openhab.org/u/binderth)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2023, 2:03pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/2 "2023-12-10T14:03:14Z")
It depends on what you want to achieve. as usual 😉 I tried to achieve the same _I_ was doing on openHAB on Home Assistant - and I crashed. Home Assistant is indeed more “easy to use” for standard scenarios. But in my opinion, if you like to do a load of logic this is way easier with openHAB - as openHAB doesn’t have that kind of abstraction like home assistant has for the end user. That could be pro or con: you have to do more for yourself in OH as in HA, but you’ve got more ways to interact with the system in OH as in HA. For me it’s the scripting power in rules and even in the Things, that does the trick. And in the end the way rules work in OH are more to my thinking than they do in HA. HA of course has all the plugins as OH has extensions, perhaps some more, but in the end I as an experienced user have more freedom to adjust the system to my needs as I had with HA. But as I said: that is heavily depending on the way you use your smarthome. ---
**Author:** ![japhias](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/japhias/32/41524_2.png) [@japhias](https://community.openhab.org/u/japhias)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2023, 2:40pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/3 "2023-12-10T14:40:14Z")
What was exactly the Point that you could not solve with HA? ---
**Author:** ![binderth](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/binderth/32/56257_2.png) [@binderth](https://community.openhab.org/u/binderth)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2023, 3:31pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/4 "2023-12-10T15:31:28Z")
first off, the logic of HA is bound to “events” and there’s no such thing as a cron-based logic firing up. That is kind of a hassle to overcome, if you like to have a rule around something that can be changed without you knowing. e.g. there’s a ready made ruleset available in OH marketplace, which calculates the phases your dish washer or washing machine is in. even if they’re “off”, they tend to use a wee bit of energy, let’s say 1W or so. In OH you can set a cron-based rule every x min to check if the average consumption is above 1W or not. In HA you fire up the automation everytime the consumption is triggered for 1W and then I was fed up with trying to find out a way to achieve “averageSince” in HA, which is readily available in every rule of OH. and there’s some more of those, mostly logic related things tiny and bigger, which led me to stay with openHAB. ---
**Author:** ![justaoldman](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@justaoldman](https://community.openhab.org/u/justaoldman)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2023, 9:59pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/5 "2023-12-10T21:59:37Z")
For me at least I could not overcome these items. HA = recurring monthly charge of $$$ HA = constant internet connection required. OpenHab != recurring monthly charge of $$$ Openhab != constant internet connection required. ---
**Author:** ![enboig](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@enboig](https://community.openhab.org/u/enboig)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2023, 10:22pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/6 "2023-12-10T22:22:08Z")
I am migrating to home assistant. I think openhab is great and so is it’s community, but most of my devices are zigbee (most of them don’t have direct zigbee support on openhab neither in home assistant) and I am using zigbee2mqtt to interact with them, which has great support with home assistant, but not so good with openhab (I know I could add them manually, I was assisted on how to do so and I am thankful for that; I also checked if homie could be added to zigbee2mqtt, but typescript is above my skills). By the way, having both of them running right now managing different parts of my house, I think Openhab rules are impressive, I use both DSL and blocky (with my kids 🙂 ); I haven’t written any _rule_ in home assistant (yaml? really?). Home assistant market seems bigger, but it depends if you need it. ---
**Author:** ![maDDin1338](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@maDDin1338](https://community.openhab.org/u/maDDin1338)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2023, 1:01pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/7 "2023-12-11T13:01:25Z")
I’m always wondering, if I hear “Homeassistant is more easy to use”… I tried multiple times in the past to get something running with HA.. But without Supervisor stuff or whatever it’s called (that’s the first confusion), I’m not able to run anything. Far away from my -even- minimalistic OH config what I have right now. Even also the change of the single .yaml .. Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate the file config from OH (even when the core dev’s dislike it in the meantime). In general, for myself OH is way more straight forward then HA. But of cause, that’s the same discussion like iOS or Android, Linux or Windows etc. etc. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![binderth](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/binderth/32/56257_2.png) [@binderth](https://community.openhab.org/u/binderth)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2023, 3:45pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/8 "2023-12-11T15:45:03Z")
> [@maDDin1338](#): > > I’m always wondering, if I hear “Homeassistant is more easy to use”… it took me like 3 days to learn the difference between Home Assistant OS and “Home Assistant” 😉 > [@maDDin1338](#): > > But of cause, that’s the same discussion like iOS or Android, Linux or Windows etc. etc. 😃 and I think that’s an appropriate comparison! 🤣 ---
**Author:** ![rlkoshak](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/rlkoshak/32/75251_2.png) [@rlkoshak](https://community.openhab.org/u/rlkoshak)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2023, 4:29pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/9 "2023-12-11T16:29:46Z")
I have no experience with HA and my general opinion is everyone should use what ever system works best for them. But I do read most of the posts on this forum and what I’ve seen reported from those who migrate from HA to openHAB include: - OH has a friendlier forum - HA is prone to allowing massive breaking changes at any time, OH is more “stable” - No free remote access - HA didn’t support device XYZ and OH does - creating automations is awkward I know there are some who run both HA and openHAB to get better coverage for their devices and take advantage of each’s strengths. ---
**Author:** ![jimtng](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/jimtng/32/98543_2.png) [@jimtng](https://community.openhab.org/u/jimtng)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2023, 7:33pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/10 "2023-12-11T19:33:16Z")
> [@enboig](#): > > most of my devices are zigbee (most of them don’t have direct zigbee support on openhab neither in home assistant) and I am using zigbee2mqtt to interact with them I use zigbee2mqtt too. I wrote a things/items file generator to deal with this. It makes adding/modifying a lot of similar devices much easier. ---
**Author:** ![apella12](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/apella12/32/117154_2.png) [@apella12](https://community.openhab.org/u/apella12)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2023, 8:39pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/11 "2023-12-11T20:39:27Z")
> [@jimtng](#): > > I wrote a things/items file generator to deal with this. I recently converted to using Zwave-js-ui (basically Zwave2Mqtt) with OH. Created all the generic Mqtt things (did not use HA configs-problematic). Is your things/items generator code sharable? Could be helpful to others. ---
**Author:** ![enboig](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@enboig](https://community.openhab.org/u/enboig)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2023, 9:44pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/12 "2023-12-11T21:44:17Z")
I saw your script, I couldn’t make it work, but the idea looked great, so I start making a python script to try get mqtt message from home assistant, and generate items automatically. But parsing json start failing. I think topic may be longer than 1024 (which I believe it is mqtt limit), but by some strange reason home assistant wasn’t affected by it. ---
**Author:** ![enboig](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@enboig](https://community.openhab.org/u/enboig)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2023, 10:03pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/13 "2023-12-11T22:03:38Z")
My intention was parse “home assistant” topic from mqtt, and generate a text which could be imported in “add items from textual definition”; it says it can be used to add/update items, so there shouldn’t be _data loss_ if some items were already in and modified. ---
**Author:** ![enboig](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@enboig](https://community.openhab.org/u/enboig)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2023, 11:23pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/14 "2023-12-11T23:23:45Z")
Maybe I should have tried using api/rest to add things with proper channels… I may give it a try. ---
**Author:** ![jimtng](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/jimtng/32/98543_2.png) [@jimtng](https://community.openhab.org/u/jimtng)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2023, 11:53pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/15 "2023-12-11T23:53:32Z")
> [@apella12](#): > > Is your things/items generator code sharable? Could be helpful to others. Search for items generator on this forum > [@enboig](#): > > I saw your script, I couldn’t make it work What was the problem? I used to use it for years. Recently I stopped using it in favour of generating the things and items directly in code using JRuby. ---
**Author:** ![Larsen](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/larsen/32/95475_2.png) [@Larsen](https://community.openhab.org/u/Larsen)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 4:15am UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/16 "2023-12-12T04:15:50Z")
The community of openhab is great. Openhab is completely community driven which feels much better for me. I can easily accept small missing features or even contribute by myself if I like to fix or add something. The payed subscription of Home Assistant that you need in common use cases (connect Google assistant, Alexa…) for me is a big disadvantage. ---
**Author:** ![Lamerjack](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/85e7bf/32.png) [@Lamerjack](https://community.openhab.org/u/Lamerjack)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 11:28am UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/17 "2023-12-12T11:28:42Z")
Once understood how work OH is easyer if you have to write code. I like That OH when you use TTS on alexa doesn’t stream audio. So if you’re listening music music will stop alexa will speak then music will continue. With OH music will stop and will not continue. The problems are binding related. No binding for Roborock on OH but there is on HA No binding for Bticino LIVING now on OH and works fine as homekit on HA Sonoff on OH is supported only changing the firmware, somebody wrote a binding that works with original firmware but is not official, so on every major update we have to wait several months to have it working.. MyBMW bindind doesn’t work with my 2016 car, works fine on HA Comfee Water heater has no binding on OH but there is for HA Broadlink RM mini has no binding for OH but HA detected it automatically. The first 4 are very popular things here in Italy… maybe a fund raising for binding developing can help… ---
**Author:** ![hmerk](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/hmerk/32/56432_2.png) [@hmerk](https://community.openhab.org/u/hmerk)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 11:58am UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/18 "2023-12-12T11:58:53Z")
> [@Lamerjack](#): > > No binding for Roborock on OH but there is on HA Did you use the community search ? There are a couple of post for Roborock support > [@Lamerjack](#): > > Broadlink RM mini has no binding for OH but HA detected it automatically. Not completely correct. There was a openHAB 3 version supporting it and I am going to move this to openHAB 4. The search function should have given you according posts. Don‘t know how HA discovers the RM Mini, but from my experiencene, it does not announce itself in the network, so autodiscovery will not be possible. ---
**Author:** ![Spaceman\_Spiff](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/spaceman_spiff/32/56883_2.png) [@Spaceman\_Spiff](https://community.openhab.org/u/Spaceman_Spiff)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 1:45pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/19 "2023-12-12T13:45:20Z")
For me HA has to many inconsistencies and is lacking some fundamental things. E.g. there is (or was when I tried it the last time) no differentiation beween a command and a state update. If you have a battery powered device and send a command the value in HA will always be that of the command and not the actual state. Also scripting even with AppDaemon is super awkward and not very comfortable. Part of that is due to the internal structure and how values and metadata are coupled together. I like writing rules in python and obviously I prefer HABApp to do so. It’s much easier and much more flexible. ---
**Author:** ![CHTHSCH](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/6f9a4e/32.png) [@CHTHSCH](https://community.openhab.org/u/CHTHSCH)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2023, 5:29pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931/20 "2023-12-13T17:29:04Z")
I moved to Home Assistant over a year back, because there is NO real innovation in openHAB. I would encourage everyone to do this step. It is not complicated. Z-Wave moved with no effort. deCONZ too. Configuration is much easier UI Configuration is much easier and more flexible Stability is much better. Especially when you use HomeKit Many more useful integrations Much better Z-Wave support Innovation rate is much higher And the yearly charge for Home Assistant Cloud is worth it. [Next page](https://community.openhab.org/t/comparison-to-home-assistant/151931.md?page=2)