What is the difference between Home Assistant Operating System and Home Assistant Container?
Home Assistant offers two installation methods: Home Assistant Operating SystemHome Assistant OS, the Home Assistant Operating System, is an embedded, minimalistic, operating system designed to run the Home Assistant ecosystem on single board computers (like the Raspberry Pi) or Virtual Machines. It includes Home Assistant Core, the Home Assistant Supervisor, and supports apps. Home Assistant Supervisor keeps it up to date, removing the need for you to manage an operating system. Home Assistant Operating System is the recommended installation type for most users. and Home Assistant ContainerHome Assistant Container is a standalone container-based installation of Home Assistant Core. Any OCI compatible runtime can be used, but the documentation focus is on Docker. [Learn more]. Both run the same Home Assistant software, so the choice is mostly about how much of the underlying system you want to manage yourself.
Home Assistant Operating System is the recommended installation method for almost everyone. It is an all-in-one solution that includes the operating system, Home Assistant itself, and a management user interface. It supports appsApps are additional standalone third-party software packages that can be installed on Home Assistant OS. [Learn more], takes care of upgrading everything for you, and powers official hardware like Home Assistant Green and Home Assistant Yellow.
Home Assistant Container runs Home Assistant as a Docker container on a Linux system you provide and maintain yourself. It is intended for people who already run Docker and want to integrate Home Assistant with their existing setup. Home Assistant Container does not support apps, and you are responsible for updates and the host operating system.
You may still see references to “Home Assistant Core” or “Home Assistant Supervised” in older articles. These were earlier installation methods that are no longer offered or supported. Today’s recommended path is Home Assistant Operating System.
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