Node-RED
Node-RED is a free tool for wiring together devices, web services and APIs. You build programs, called flows, in a browser by dragging nodes onto a canvas and wiring them up. It was created at IBM in 2013 and is now an OpenJS Foundation project.
What people use it for
Node-RED is popular for home automation and IoT. A typical flow might take sensor readings from MQTT, check them, store them in a database and send an alert when something is out of range. It has thousands of add-on nodes and a dashboard for building web UIs.
Where it runs
Node-RED runs on Node.js, on a server, a PC or a Raspberry Pi. Microcontrollers usually talk to it over the network, often by MQTT, and run their own separate firmware.
Where Thingstudio fits
Thingstudio takes Node-RED's way of working onto the microcontroller. The flow runs on the board itself, so the board doesn't need a server to decide what to do. The two work well together: a Thingstudio board can publish readings over MQTT to a Node-RED flow on your server.
If you already use Node-RED, see if you know Node-RED for what's different.
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Further reading: