Node-RED

What is Node-RED?

Node-RED lets you build automation by dragging nodes onto a canvas and wiring them together, with a huge library of community nodes for MQTT, HTTP, home automation hardware and cloud services. It started inside IBM as a way to make event-driven IoT work visual, and it is still the quickest way to connect a sensor or webhook to an action without writing a full service.

Best for

Wiring sensors, webhooks and APIs together visually without writing much code

Replaces

• Zapier
• IFTTT
• n8n

Key features

• Visual flow editor that runs in the browser
• Large library of community-contributed nodes
• Built-in MQTT, HTTP and websocket support
• JavaScript function nodes for custom logic

How to deploy

• Docker
• npm
• Linux packages

Project health

• GitHub stars: 23,699
• Last code push: 2026-09-18
• Open issues: 356
• Status: actively developed

Figures pulled from the GitHub API and refreshed periodically.