Your smart home is constantly evolving, but a poor foundation can lead to problems down the line. Picking the right platform on which to build is arguably the most important decision you can make.

It’s time to rank the top options you have available to you.

How we ranked these smart home platforms

Certain criteria have been prioritized in order to create this list. Local control that doesn’t depend on the internet, freedom and openness, and privacy and data ownership score the most points. The option of a subscription-free experience is also important.

Ease of use and price don’t feature as highly because most platforms have managed to get the basics right for a while now.

7

Google Home

People aren’t happy

Credit: Joe Fedewa / Tim Brookes / How-To Geek

Google Home has seen a sad decline in recent years, to the point where even Google has acknowledged the fact. A quick browse of the r/GoogleHome subreddit makes for a depressing read, as users lament stability issues, sluggish development, and the loss of Google Assistant in favor of a Gemini replacement with fewer features.

Google officially supports the universal Matter standard, but has been slow to adopt the newest versions. The platform is almost entirely dependent on the cloud too, which means that processing local requests (like switching on lights) requires talking to a remote server.

6

Amazon Alexa

Joint last place

Credit: Justin Duino / How-To Geek

Google and Amazon take a very similar approach to the smart home. They both have largely the same problems like cloud dependency, though Amazon hasn’t seen the outpouring of grief from users quite like Google has, despite making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

In late 2025, an AWS outage caused Alexa to die, and with it so too did millions of smart homes. The same thing would happen if your own internet were to die. Amazon charges hefty fees for its Ring cameras and the newest LLM-powered version of its Alexa+ smart assistant. On top of this, the company stores your voice requests by default and keeps them forever unless you decide to delete them.

Brand

Amazon

Display

2.83” touch screen

The 2024 Amazon Echo Spot is a versatile smart display with a 5.5-inch touchscreen, ideal for video calls, streaming, and controlling smart home devices. With Alexa built-in, enjoy hands-free voice commands, rich sound quality, and seamless integration with your daily routines. 

5

Samsung SmartThings

Not as smart as it once was

Credit: Bertel King / How-To Geek

Samsung’s SmartThings platform is also highly cloud-dependent, but the company does have the best Matter support of the “big four” smart home platforms. Even so, a recent decision by Samsung to start charging anyone who uses its API has them in third-last place.

Though this plan would mostly hit developers of projects that interact with SmartThings, even existing users could be hit if they use additional services that pass that fee on to the end user. That makes SmartThings a particularly poor choice if you want to go beyond Samsung’s own apps and controls and don’t fancy paying for the privilege.

4

IKEA Home Smart

Surprisingly not the main reason to buy IKEA’s smart home accessories

Credit: Tim Brookes / How-To Geek

IKEA has made a name for itself with cheap and reliable smart home accessories, with the company marketing these for use with its own in-house Dirigera hub. The hub works well enough with older Zigbee and newer Matter (Thread) IKEA-branded accessories, and it’s a local system that lets you control your smart home without an internet connection.

Unfortunately, as a platform, IKEA is less than ideal. You can only connect IKEA accessories to the Dirigera hub, and though there’s a decent range of features like scenes and a nice UI, the platform lacks the raw potential you can find elsewhere. The nice thing about IKEA accessories is that you can use them with other platforms, so if you end up ditching IKEA Home Smart in future you’ll only have to eat the cost of the hub.

3

Apple Home

Local, private, and a good choice for Apple users—but no one else

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

Apple designed its smart home platform to be local-first, with hub devices like the HomePod and Apple TV serving as a local coordinator. Apple has since gone all-in on Matter too, including support for Thread devices when used with a modern hub that includes Thread border router support. Apple also encrypts and anonymizes Siri requests (though Siri still sucks, unfortunately).

You can expand Apple Home to non-Apple devices with Homebridge, or use Home Assistant with Apple Home thanks to HomeKit Bridge. Unfortunately, the platform doesn’t work with non-Apple devices, which feels like a big missed opportunity on Apple’s part. Automations work, but they do feel limited compared to what’s possible in other platforms.

Personally, I see Apple Home as a great addition to Home Assistant rather than as a replacement.

Connectivity

Bluetooth, Wi-Fi

Voice Assistant

Siri

The Apple HomePod Mini is a Siri-enabled smart speaker for those invested in the HomeKit ecosystem. Compact and discreet, the HomePod Mini is available in five different colors, too.

2

Homey

A local-first premium option for people who want reliable simplicity

Homey is a local-first smart home platform that doesn’t depend on the internet and gives you ownership of your data. It’s built around the concept of the Homey hub, starting with the $200 Home Pro mini, which includes Matter, Zigbee, and Thread. You can pay $400 for the Home Pro if you want to add Z-Wave, infrared, and radio wave too (433MHz). You can also self-host Homey if you want.

The Homey platform is highly polished, offering an easy-to-use setup for those who prefer a simple platform that works rather than endless expandability. It’s got a powerful automation editor, beautiful dashboards, good connectivity, voice assistant choices, and a scripting language.

It just stops short of our number one pick since it cannot compete on a community and integration level.

1

Home Assistant

The undisputed king

Home Assistant is the smart home operating system. It runs on just about everything, is completely free, is owned by a non-profit called the Open Home Foundation, and has a reliable stream of revenue thanks to the optional Nabu Casa cloud service and first-party hardware releases. It’s actively maintained and constantly improving, and it’s a great place to start (and finish) your smart home journey.

The sheer number of users makes Home Assistant hard to beat, with a broad user base constantly pushing and pulling the project in new directions. There are hundreds of official integrations, custom gaps filled in by the community, a system of blueprints for fast automation design, add-on apps that allow you to do things like run media servers and NAS drives within the platform, and so much more.

Openness and data ownership are front and center. You’re not locked in to any subscription or plan (though some services will only work via cloud as a result of limitations with the service, rather than the platform). You can pay a fee to access your server remotely, or piece together your own solution.

The only drawback to Home Assistant is that this much power can feel overwhelming. Thankfully, it doesn’t need to be. You can make a simple smart home to begin with, then start experimenting as you gain confidence and catch the bug.

Dimensions (exterior)

4.41″L x 4.41″W x 1.26″H

Weight

12 Ounces

Home Assistant Green is a pre-built hub directly from the Home Assistant team. It’s a plug-and-play solution that comes with everything you need to set up Home Assistant in your home without needing to install the software yourself. 

Wondering what all the fuss is about? Spin up a Home Assistant server using any old hardware you can find and try it out. You can probably bring most of your hardware with you!