EMQX vs Thingsboard
Both are self-hosted internet of things (iot) projects. This page compares how well each one is actually maintained — the part you cannot see from a feature list.
| EMQX | Thingsboard | |
|---|---|---|
| Health score | 96/100 | 85/100 |
| Commits (11 mo) | 5869 | 3708 |
| Commits (last 3 mo) | 2494 | 588 |
| Stars | 17k | 22k |
| Latest release | 18 Sept 2026 | 11 Sept 2026 |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Built with | Docker, Erlang | Java, Docker, K8S |
| Typical RAM | 2 GB | 2 GB |
EMQX
Scalable MQTT broker. Connect 100M+ IoT devices in one single cluster, move and process real-time IoT data with 1M msg/s throughput at 1ms latency.
High commit volume, frequent releases and growing activity.
Commit activity more than 97% of tracked projects; popularity more than 86%. How this is calculated.
Commits, last 11 months
Thingsboard
IoT Platform - Device management, data collection, processing and visualization.
High commit volume, frequent releases and growing activity.
Commit activity more than 95% of tracked projects; popularity more than 89%. How this is calculated.
Commits, last 11 months
How to read this
Everything above is measured, not opinion: commit counts and release dates come from the public repositories, and the health score ranks each project against all 1352 projects we track. Read the full method.
What this comparison deliberately does not do is tell you which has the better feature set. Maintenance health tells you which project will still be receiving security fixes in two years. Decide that first, then compare features on the projects that survive the filter.
See every option in this category: self-hosted internet of things (iot).