DataKubo vs ThingsBoard
ThingsBoard is the most capable open-source IoT platform there is, and if you have a developer who wants to run it, it is a genuinely good choice. If you install meters for a living, here is what it actually costs you.
ThingsBoard Community Edition is free, Apache 2.0, self-hostable and supports multi-tenancy out of the box — but it has no white-labeling, so the portal you hand a customer says ThingsBoard on it. Removing that means Professional Edition (white-label from the Pilot tier, $99/mo self-managed) or ThingsBoard Cloud (white-label from Pilot at $149/mo, where each tenant needs its own subscription). In every paid path you are still the one running the server, the upgrades, the backups and the 2am phone call. DataKubo is a flat monthly fee with white-label and unlimited customers included, and nothing for you to host.
What each route costs
ThingsBoard has three routes and they price very differently. The column that matters for a reseller is whether the customer sees your brand or theirs.
| Route | DataKubo | ThingsBoard |
|---|---|---|
| Free, self-hosted (Community Edition) | n/a — nothing to host | $0 licence, no white-label |
| 100 devices, white-label, self-managed | From €49/mo | $99/mo (PE Pilot) + your hosting |
| 100 devices, white-label, managed | From €49/mo | $149/mo (Cloud Pilot) |
| 500 devices, managed | From €49/mo | $399/mo (Cloud Startup) |
| Each additional end customer | Included, unlimited | Own subscription on Cloud |
| Perpetual licence | n/a | From $4,999 one-time |
ThingsBoard pricing from thingsboard.io/pricing, checked 23 September 2026; Cloud figures are North America pricing. Self-hosting costs — servers, storage, upgrades, monitoring and your own time — are not included in the licence figure. DataKubo’s fee is quoted on the demo call.
Feature comparison
| Capability | DataKubo | ThingsBoard | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advantage: DataKubo | White-label on the free tier | No free tier; white-label on every paid plan | Not available in Community Edition |
| Advantage: DataKubo | Customer accounts | Unlimited, included | Multi-tenant, but a subscription per tenant on Cloud |
| Advantage: DataKubo | Who runs the server | We do | You do, unless you buy Cloud |
| Advantage: DataKubo | Time to first customer portal | Minutes | Days to weeks, plus deployment work |
| Advantage: DataKubo | Upgrades and security patching | Included | Yours to schedule and test |
| Advantage: DataKubo | Water-metering templates | Built for water meters | General-purpose, you build the vertical |
| Advantage: competitor | Customisability | Configuration, not code | Rule engine, full source access |
| Advantage: competitor | Protocol coverage | Webhook from TTN / ChirpStack | MQTT, CoAP, HTTP, LwM2M, SNMP, Modbus |
| Advantage: competitor | Vendor lock-in | Hosted service | Apache 2.0, your data, your servers |
| Advantage: competitor | Cost at very large scale | Per-meter fee | Self-hosted marginal cost approaches zero |
Where ThingsBoard is stronger
This is a serious platform and the honest answer is that for some teams it is the right call:
- Apache 2.0 licensed, so the Community Edition is genuinely free and you own the deployment outright — no vendor can change the terms on you.
- Far broader protocol support than DataKubo: MQTT, CoAP, HTTP, LwM2M, SNMP and Modbus, where we take a webhook from TTN or ChirpStack.
- A rule engine and full source access mean there is essentially nothing you cannot make it do, given developer time.
- General-purpose by design, so one deployment can cover water, energy, environmental and industrial use cases together.
- At very large scale on your own hardware, the marginal cost per device approaches zero in a way no per-meter SaaS fee can match.
Where DataKubo is stronger
For an installation company of one to twenty people with no developer to spare:
- The free edition cannot be white-labeled at all — your customer opens a portal that says ThingsBoard. With DataKubo the brand is yours on every plan, including the cheapest.
- Nothing to host, patch, back up or monitor. The hours a technical director spends keeping a server alive are hours not spent installing meters, and they never appear on the licence invoice.
- Unlimited end customers on one flat fee, where ThingsBoard Cloud expects a subscription per tenant — the wrong shape for a business with many small comunidades.
- Built for water metering specifically, so leak alerts, per-dwelling consumption and the reparto a comunidad actually argues about are there on day one rather than built by you in a rule engine.
- A new customer portal is live in minutes, not after a deployment project.
Ready to compare for yourself?
Live demo, no signup required. Keep using TTN or ChirpStack — DataKubo sits on top.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is ThingsBoard really free?
The Community Edition is, under Apache 2.0, with no licence fee and no hard device limit. What is not free is the server it runs on, the time to deploy and upgrade it, and the fact that it cannot be white-labeled — so it is free only if your customer seeing ThingsBoard branding costs you nothing.
Can I white-label the free ThingsBoard?
No. White-labeling is not available in Community Edition. It starts at the Pilot tier of Professional Edition ($99/mo self-managed) or ThingsBoard Cloud ($149/mo). DataKubo includes white-label on every plan.
ThingsBoard supports multi-tenancy — is that not the same thing?
Technically yes, practically not quite. Community Edition is multi-tenant, but without white-labeling every tenant sees ThingsBoard branding. And on ThingsBoard Cloud each tenant needs its own subscription, which is an awkward shape if you have fifteen comunidades of forty meters each.
Should I just self-host it?
If you have a developer who wants to own it, you need protocols we do not support, or you are at a scale where per-meter fees dominate, then yes — self-hosting ThingsBoard is a reasonable decision and we would rather say so. If your competitive advantage is installing meters well, running a server is a cost centre you are choosing to take on.
Can I move to DataKubo later if I start with ThingsBoard?
Yes. If your devices report through ChirpStack or TTN, you point that webhook at DataKubo and data flows in immediately — no device changes and no re-flashing required.
Competitor pricing is based on publicly available information, last checked 23 September 2026, and may vary. Actual costs depend on your specific usage and plan.