What is Node-RED?
Node-RED is an open-source visual programming tool built on Node.js for wiring together hardware devices, APIs, and online services. It provides a browser-based flow editor that makes it easy to wire together flows using a wide range of nodes that can be deployed to its runtime in a single click.
Some key capabilities and features of Node-RED include:
- Browser-based flow editor - Easy to create flows by dragging and dropping nodes and wiring them together
- Wide range of nodes - Prebuilt nodes for APIs, databases, web services, hardware devices, and more
- Open source - Built on open standards and extends through open-source contributed nodes
- Cross-platform - Runs on Raspberry Pi, cloud, enterprise environments, and more
- Built-in package manager - Easily install third party nodes
- Works with both code and no-code approaches
- Integrations - Connect with services like Twitter, Weather APIs, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and more
- Active community - Community forums and slack for support
Node-RED enables wiring together flows in new and interesting ways very quickly. It bridges together gaps between devices, APIs, events and services. The wide range of nodes helps integrate new devices and services into overall systems and workflows.
n8n.io, IFTTT, iot-dashboard, Relay - Workflow Automation, NoFlo, SiteWhere.io, Zenaton, Corezoid Process Engine, AWS IoT, ioBroker, OPC Router are some alternatives to Node-RED.