An IoT Platform You Can Actually Run Yourself: OpenRemote Core

You've got sensors, devices, and a growing pile of data—but stitching together a device management layer, a rules engine, a dashboard, and connectivity for a dozen protocols is its own full-time job. OpenRemote Core is a fully open source IoT platform that bundles all of that into a single stack you can spin up with Docker Compose. No vendor lock-in, no license tier to worry about.

What It Does

OpenRemote is an IoT device management platform. Out of the box, it covers device management and auto provisioning, custom asset types, automation (via when-then rules, flows, JavaScript, and Groovy), data analytics, and an Insights dashboard builder. It also ships a front-end built from web components and consoles, plus a set of APIs for connectivity.

On the integration side, it connects through several protocol agents and manager APIs, including an MQTT broker, HTTP/REST, and WebSockets. It also supports multi-tenancy through realms, along with users and roles management, and an edge gateway for deployments closer to the devices.

The stack is distributed as Docker images (both amd64 and arm64 are supported), so getting a working environment doesn't require compiling anything from source.

Why It's Cool

• It's genuinely 100% open source. That's the headline, and it matters. The README makes the point directly: because the code base is fully open, "applications are limitless." You're not building on top of a community edition that's missing the pieces you'll need later.

• The feature list is unusually complete for a self-hosted option. Device provisioning, custom asset types, four different automation approaches, analytics, a dashboard builder, multi-tenancy, role management, and an edge gateway—that's a lot of ground covered by one platform rather than a patchwork of separate tools.

• Multi-tenancy via realms is a smart inclusion. If you're running this for multiple clients or departments, having realms built in means you don't have to stand up separate instances for each tenant.

• The automation options meet you where you are. When-then rules are approachable for non-developers, while JavaScript and Groovy give you an escape hatch when the simple path isn't enough. Flows sit somewhere in between.

• It runs on ARM. The arm64 support means you can run this on a Raspberry Pi or an ARM-based server, which is handy for edge setups where you don't want a full x86 box.

• There's a demo you can poke at first. Before committing to a local install, you can log into an online demo with smartcity:smartcity credentials and see what the Manager UI actually looks like.

How to Try It

You'll need Docker Desktop (v18 or newer) installed first. Then:

1. Download the Docker Compose file: OpenRemote Stack (right-click and "Save link as...").

2. In a terminal, cd to wherever you saved it, then run:

docker compose pull
docker compose -p openremote up

1. Once it's up, open the Manager UI at https://127.0.0.1. You'll need to accept the self-signed certificate—the README links to instructions for bypassing the browser warning in Chrome (other browsers are similar).

2. Log in with username admin and password secret.

If you're running this on a VM or accessing it from another machine, the hostname matters. Set OR_HOSTNAME to whatever address you'll actually use:

OR_HOSTNAME=192.168.1.1 docker compose -p openremote up -d

On Windows CMD, that looks like:

cmd /C "set OR_HOSTNAME=192.168.1.1 && docker compose -p openremote up -d"

From there, the README points you toward creating assets, agents, rules, users, and realms through the Manager UI. The documentation covers specifics like the Manager UI guide, an HTTP agent tutorial that connects to a weather service, custom deployment for branding, and setup guides for an IDE and UI development.

The source lives at github.com/openremote/core, with a forum and issue tracker if you get stuck.

Final Thoughts

OpenRemote is aimed at people who need a real IoT platform but don't want to hand their stack over to a vendor—developers building device management solutions, teams that need multi-tenant setups, or anyone who wants an edge gateway without reinventing it. The Docker Compose quickstart makes evaluation cheap: pull, up, log in, and see whether it fits before you invest time. If the feature list matches what you're building, the fact that it's fully open source removes the biggest risk of adopting a platform like this.

Follow @githubprojects for more developer tools and open source projects.