Homebridge
Hacker ApprovedRanked 4 of 6 smart home hubs by recommenders
Lets non-HomeKit smart devices work in Apple Home, and people find it solid and handy for remote access without port forwarding.
Lets non-HomeKit smart devices work in Apple Home, and people find it solid and handy for remote access without port forwarding.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 93%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 13 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Connects non-HomeKit devices to HomeKit
“home assistant/homebridge glue a pile of cheap IoT stuff into a single, cohesive, useable setup”
Comment from 2 Sep 2026 in “Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage” “If you run an Apple HomeKit stack and don’t need all the other stuff HA offers”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “How Home Assistant became the most important project in your house” “I connect them into HomeKit via HomeBridge and it's been solid.”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “IKEA launches new smart home range with 21 Matter-compatible products” - Comment from 31 Aug 2026 in “It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell”
Solid, recovers after power outages
“like the devices that it manages, is down on the rare occasions when the power is out, and then comes back up again afterwards”
Comment from 4 May 2026 in “Homebridge 2.0 is here, and it speaks Matter” “I connect them into HomeKit via HomeBridge and it's been solid.”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “IKEA launches new smart home range with 21 Matter-compatible products”
Other smart home hubs people recommend
The four most recommended other smart home hubs, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home Assistant | 298 | 75 | 80% | 13 | 2 yrs17 owners | Approved |
| Apple HomeView | 95 | 149 | 39% | 6 | — | — |
| Zigbee2MQTT | 16 | 2 | 89% | 6 | — | Approved |
| HomebridgeThis page | 13 | 1 | 93% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Home Assistant Green | 6 | 1 | 86% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
12 of the 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“home assistant/homebridge glue a pile of cheap IoT stuff into a single, cohesive, useable setup”
“works alright with just Homebridge + HomePods”
“It is trash and won’t work well.”
“It's also running my Home Bridge, which Claude can interact with.”
“Check out Homebridge as well.”
“don't work as well as the homebridge version”
“handy in that you get remote access with no extra port forwarding”
“I want the app UI specifically, and Homebridge enables that.”
“like the devices that it manages, is down on the rare occasions when the power is out, and then comes back up again afterwards”
“If you run an Apple HomeKit stack and don’t need all the other stuff HA offers”
“Works for me with homebridge, scrypted, and plex.”
“I connect them into HomeKit via HomeBridge and it's been solid.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.