Apple Home vs Core
Apple Home and Core are both home automation software. Apple Home is a commercial product from Apple Inc. Core is open source under Apache-2.0, with 92k GitHub stars.
Which to pick
- Pick Apple Home when
- Everyone in the house uses Apple devices and you value privacy and local control.
- Pick Core when
- You want local control of a smart home across many brands without relying on vendor clouds.
Side by side
Apple's Home app and HomeKit platform for controlling Matter and HomeKit devices, with local automations through a HomePod or Apple TV hub.
A home automation platform that runs locally and connects thousands of smart home devices and services, with automations, dashboards and voice control.
Needs an Apple hub for automations, has no Android app, and automation logic is limited.
Monthly releases sometimes break integrations, and complex setups take ongoing tinkering.
Production-ready (both)
Mobile app and desktop app
Self-hosted server
Not published
Python and SQLAlchemy
Closed source, sold by Apple Inc.
Open source, Apache-2.0 (permissive)
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
You can build it into a product you sell, as long as you keep its copyright notice.
1.7k Wikipedia readers a month on phones
92k GitHub stars
Not known
Established: started 13 years ago, latest release 2026.10.4.
Other comparisons
More home automation platforms
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.