10 of the best add-ons for Home Assistant

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Key findings

  • Home Assistant offers various plugins such as Frigate, Node-RED and ESPHome to improve smart home automation.
  • Integrations like Google Drive Backup ensure data security, while tools like InfluxDB and Grafana monitor system metrics.
  • AdGuard Home and Rhasspy offer ad blockers and voice-controlled assistant features, respectively.



Home Assistant is an incredible platform that reduces the complexity of managing all your smart devices. From its remote monitoring capabilities to its compatibility with most smart gadgets and IoT devices, Home Assistant can transform any boring living space into an automated fortress.

Additionally, it has an extensive list of integrations and add-ons, and you can even add more plugin repositories to take your smart home setup to the next level. However, since it can be difficult to sift through the flood of integrations on the web, we've compiled a list of the best plugins for most users.

10 Studio Code Server

Particularly useful for editing the configuration.yaml file

Running the Studio Code Server add-on within the Home Assistant UI


If you've dabbled with Kubernetes or other containerization platforms before, you might be familiar with YAML scripts. Home Assistant also uses YAML files for most operations, including automation and entity/device management. While you can technically use the File Editor add-on, VS Studio Code offers more programming-focused features and is quite useful when you need to type multiple lines of code to get a specific configuration file working.

9 Mosquitto Broker

How to set up communication lines with your IoT devices

Running the Mosquitto Broker add-on within the Home Assistant UI

For those who have a variety of IoT products in their smart home setup, the MQTT protocol can be a godsend if you want to receive sensor data from all of your devices. The Mosquitto broker (yes, that's misspelled) is a fantastic plugin that makes it easy to send and receive messages between your Home Assistant device and all of the IoT devices connected to your home network.


8 frigate

Although motionEye is a good alternative

Although you'll need to add an additional repo before installing Frigate on Home Assistant, the plugin is worth using if you want to bring NVR functionality to your smart home. Frigate is compatible with a variety of different security cameras and IP webcams and allows you to set up remote monitoring, email alerts, motion detection, and a variety of other services to keep your automated living space under 24/7 surveillance.

7 Samba share

NAS enthusiasts will love this

Running the Samba Sharing Add-on within the Home Assistant UI


If your Home Assistant setup involves recording footage from security cameras, you may want to transfer the video files to your PC at some point. This is where the Samba Share add-on comes in, allowing you to transfer files to and from your Home Assistant node via CIFS and SMB protocols. You can even use it to turn your HA setup into a makeshift NAS!

6 Google Drive Backup

Backup everything

Running the Google Drive Backup add-on within the Home Assistant interface

Like other computing devices, your Home Assistant node isn't infallible, which is why backups are just as important for your smart home hub as they are for your NAS and PC. True to its name, the Google Drive Backup add-on lets you save snapshots of your Home Assistant setup to your Google Drive. Of course, this plugin requires you to add a new repository, but its rock-solid automatic backup capabilities make it essential for any Home Assistant user.


5 ESPHome

For the microcontroller lovers out there

IoT devices and smart home peripherals have many benefits, but nothing is more fun than creating your own smart projects using microcontrollers. The best part is that with the ESPHome plugin for Home Assistant, DIYers can integrate any ESP32 and ESP8266 projects into their smart computing environment. If you're brave enough, you can follow the procedures to connect specific Arduino, Raspberry Pi Pico and RP2040 microcontrollers to your ESPHome!

4 InfluxDB + Grafana

To see what's going on in your smart home

Running the Grafana add-on in the Home Assistant UI


From network bandwidth to appliance temperatures, there are a number of metrics you'll want to monitor in your smart home setup. InfluxDB is an application that aggregates important sensor data into a more complex, database-like format. Luckily, it's compatible with Grafana, so you can view the statistics collected by InfluxDB as graphs. Setting up InfluxDB and Grafana is also pretty straightforward, as is linking the plugins!

3 AdGuard Home

Pi-Hole on Steroids

Running the AdGuard add-on within the Home Assistant interface


If you don't want to relegate a Docker container or a small SBC to a PiHole server running 24/7, you can set up AdGuard Home on your Home Assistant device to block ads on your local network. While some users prefer PiHole over AdGuard, I'm drawn to the latter's sleek interface and built-in DNS-over-HTTPS capabilities. Plus, it's incredibly easy to use and doesn't take up a lot of computer resources either.

2 Knot-RED

Who says automation has to be difficult?

Running the Node-RED add-on in the Home Assistant UI

Although UI Mode in the Developer Tools menu offers a relatively straightforward way to automate your smart devices, you will need to learn YAML programming to create pragmatic automation scripts. The Node-RED plugin serves as a middle ground between the two methods by allowing you to automate everything using nodes. While it may seem unnecessary for smaller setups, Node-RED shines in complex setups where you may need to apply the same automation nodes to multiple devices.


1 Rhasspy

The best voice-controlled smart home assistant

Running the Rhasspy add-on within the Home Assistant interface

Raspy and all of its associated plugins are great additions to your HA node, as they allow you to manage your smart home using only your voice. It's by no means the easiest add-on to set up, as you'll need to install other plugins, download certain dependencies, and configure certain settings before you can interact with your smart home assistant. But if you're willing to put in the effort, you'll be rewarded with a convenient method of controlling all of your smart devices.

Get the most out of your smart home with powerful Home Assistant add-ons

The Add-on Store in the Home Assistant user interface


While these plugins are helpful for most users, there are a few other add-ons you might need depending on your specific use cases. For example, you can configure Plex or Jellyfin add-ons to turn your Home Assistant node into a media streaming device. To use the latter, however, you'll need to add this repo to your add-on repository list. On the other hand, security enthusiasts might want to try NGNIX Reverse Proxy and WireGuard, while RPC Shutdown is pretty useful for those who need to remotely manage their Windows devices via the Home Assistant web interface.

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