Neuron vs Siemens Opcenter
Neuron and Siemens Opcenter are both manufacturing (mrp/mes) software. Neuron is open source under LGPL-3.0, with 1.4k GitHub stars. Siemens Opcenter is a commercial product from Siemens.
Which to pick
- Pick Neuron when
- You need a lightweight edge gateway to move PLC data into MQTT or EMQX.
- Pick Siemens Opcenter when
- A large manufacturer with complex plant operations wants MES tied to Siemens PLM and automation.
Side by side
An industrial connectivity server that reads dozens of protocols such as Modbus, OPC UA and Siemens S7 at the edge and publishes the data over MQTT.
Siemens' manufacturing operations management portfolio: MES, advanced planning and scheduling, quality and lab management.
Many protocol drivers are only in EMQ's commercial edition; the open version covers a subset.
It is a portfolio of products needing specialist integrators and substantial investment.
Production-ready (both)
Self-hosted server
Self-hosted server and cloud service
C and MQTT
Not published
Open source, LGPL-3.0 (weak copyleft)
Closed source, sold by Siemens
You can use it inside a product you sell; changes you make to its own files must be shared.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
1.4k GitHub stars
No Wikipedia article of its own
Established: started 5 years ago, latest release 2.15.0.
Not known
Other comparisons
More manufacturing (MRP and MES) systems
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.