Node-RED
Hacker ApprovedRanked 3 of 7 workflow automation tools by recommenders
People recommend Node-RED as a visual flow-based tool for IoT, home automation and data flows, with many integrations, though critics say it lacks visibility into what happened.
People recommend Node-RED as a visual flow-based tool for IoT, home automation and data flows, with many integrations, though critics say it lacks visibility into what happened.
16 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 81%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 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
Home automation and IoT integrations
“I've been using NodeRED + zigbee2mqtt/zwavejs for my locally controlled home automation to great effect.”
Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “Google has officially turned these Nest thermostats back into dumb thermostats” “the nodered on pi controlling a squadron of esp32 workers over wifi/mqtt was really nice”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional” “there are actually a ton of unique IoT integrations that node-red has”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Sim – Apache-2.0 n8n alternative” - Comment from 27 Jan 2026 in “RIP Low-Code 2014-2025”
- Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Sim – Apache-2.0 n8n alternative”
Visual flow-based programming
“I recently have gotten into the "drag and drop" forms of programming like Node-RED and n8n.”
Comment from 9 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)” “Node-RED is a good example of visual programming based on flow based programming paradigm”
Comment from 25 Jun 2026 in “Mixing Visual and Textual Code” “What revived me was doing visual coding using Node-RED”
Comment from 7 Sep 2026 in “Programming is Art” - Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “Node-Red 5 Released”
Version 5 editor improvements
“Node-RED is also a good alternative, especially the new version 5 (for those who might have tried it before and didn’t like the editor).”
Comment from 15 Jul 2026 in “CVE-2026-59208: Cross-Issuer Account Takeover in n8n” “I'm using it as my daily driver and I have to say - huge improvements all around!”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “Node-Red 5 Released” Handles complicated flows well
“Great little architecture and having it highly automated allowed me to focus on the parts that were less easily controlled for.”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional” “Nodered is handy for when things get complicated”
Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Micasa – track your house from the terminal”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Edge cases and nondeterministic behavior
“Node Red scripts that he's spent about a year fiddling with and still keeps finding edge cases where things go wrong”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Smart Homes Are Terrible” “why would you put controller logic into a non-deterministic environment like node-red?”
Comment from 30 Jul 2026 in “Gpiozero Flow”
Other workflow automation tools people recommend
The four most recommended other workflow automation tools, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| n8n | 46 | 27 | 63% | 11 | — | — |
| Zapier | 15 | 17 | 47% | 6 | — | — |
| Node-REDThis page | 13 | 3 | 81% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Sim | 7 | 1 | 88% | 1 | — | — |
| Graph Compose | 7 | 0 | 100% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
20 of the 23 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I've been using NodeRED + zigbee2mqtt/zwavejs for my locally controlled home automation to great effect.”
“What revived me was doing visual coding using Node-RED”
“why would you put controller logic into a non-deterministic environment like node-red?”
“node-RED for PLC programming”
“Node-RED is also a good alternative, especially the new version 5 (for those who might have tried it before and didn’t like the editor).”
“Node-RED is a good example of visual programming based on flow based programming paradigm”
“Workflows that require flow logic.”
“Node's big weakness is a lack of visibility into what happened”
“I'm using it as my daily driver and I have to say - huge improvements all around!”
“the nodered on pi controlling a squadron of esp32 workers over wifi/mqtt was really nice”
“Great little architecture and having it highly automated allowed me to focus on the parts that were less easily controlled for.”
“Node RED is still unwieldy for the masses”
“Nodered is handy for when things get complicated”
“https://nodered.org/ is maybe a better fit”
“Node Red scripts that he's spent about a year fiddling with and still keeps finding edge cases where things go wrong”
“I still use n8n and node-red for some automation stuff in my house.”
“there are actually a ton of unique IoT integrations that node-red has”
“Node-Red is the original.”
“Node-RED is great for IoT/edge/data flows.”
“I recently have gotten into the "drag and drop" forms of programming like Node-RED and n8n.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.