Open Source IoT Platform
SENTIENT is an IoT platform for data collection, processing, visualization, and device management. It enables you to accelerate development and lower costs by providing out-of-the-box components and APIs while maintaining full control over your solution and data.
SENTIENT (CE) is a free, open-source IoT platform for collecting, storing, and analyzing data from IoT devices. It is designed for developers and organizations that want full control over their own IoT infrastructure and source code without any licensing fees.
Learn more about the platform's architecture in our What is SENTIENT? guide, or jump straight to the Getting Started Guide to build your first project.
Yes, it is completely free, with no licensing fees or hidden costs.
Community Edition (CE) is a free, open-source platform suitable for development, testing, and production use without licensing costs. It includes essential features for IoT device management, data collection, visualization, and rule processing.
Professional Edition (PE) includes all CE features and offers advanced capabilities such as white-labeling, role-based access control (RBAC), platform integrations, solution templates, scheduler, and enterprise support.
See the PE product page for a detailed feature comparison table.
Install SENTIENT locally by following our installation guide.
To connect your first device and build dashboards, explore the Getting Started Guide.
SENTIENT does not have built-in API rate limits; however, system performance and request handling are subject to the limitations of the infrastructure on which it is hosted.
No, the Community Edition does not impose programmatic device limits. The number of devices you can connect is only limited by your server's hardware resources.
The SENTIENT platform is designed to be horizontally scalable. By utilizing a consistent-hashing load balancing algorithm between cluster nodes, the system ensures high availability and performance. Actual capacity depends on your specific usage scenarios and data throughput requirements.
For instance, even a cluster of commodity hardware can support several million devices connected via MQTT.
SENTIENT provides MQTT, CoAP, HTTP, and LwM2M protocols support. Existing devices may be connected to the platform using SENTIENT IoT Gateway. You can find more information on the connectivity page.
No, many IoT devices cannot afford the overhead of embedding a third-party SDK. SENTIENT provides a simple API over common IoT protocols, allowing you to choose any client-side library you prefer or use your own. Some useful references include:
You can host SENTIENT in the cloud, on-premises, or locally on your laptop, PC, or even a Raspberry Pi. We recommend getting started with a Docker installation:
You can also take a look at the cluster setup guide.
Yes. CE is licensed under Apache 2.0, allowing commercial use without restrictions. You can build, sell, and deploy commercial products on CE.
Yes, you can migrate from SENTIENT to Professional Edition without losing telemetry data and/or configurations. The upgrade process preserves your existing setup, ensuring a seamless transition.
However, please note that any custom modifications made directly to the source code of the Community Edition will be removed during the upgrade process.
See the SENTIENT instructions for upgrading from Community Edition. Back up your data before starting.
The easiest way is to log in as SysAdmin. On the home page, you will find a widget in the bottom-left corner of the screen showing the current platform version and whether an upgrade is available.
Yes, you can integrate SENTIENT with third-party systems through REST APIs or Rule Engine.
No, white-labeling is available only in the Professional Edition.
The Community Edition does not include a built-in white-labeling feature. However, it is technically possible to replace the default SENTIENT logo by modifying the source code and rebuilding the platform. This requires development expertise and familiarity with SENTIENT’s codebase. Please note that such changes will need to be reapplied after each upgrade of the platform.
If you need a more streamlined and configurable option, we recommend considering the Professional Edition. With Professional Edition, you can effortlessly upload your own logo and favicon, customize login and system pages, adjust colors and branding palettes, and even tailor email templates, translations, and custom menus - all directly from the user interface, without touching the code. This empowers your organization to deliver a fully branded, professional-grade experience to your customers and tenants in just a few clicks.
More details: PE White-Labeling Guide.
Yes, use the Free plan. This includes access to all PE features for evaluation, including add-ons - Edge computing and SENTIENT ANALYTICS.
The source code is available on GitHub. You can fork, modify, and contribute to the project under the Apache 2.0 license. It is free for both personal and commercial usage, and you can deploy it anywhere.
Yes! Pull requests and contributions are welcome on GitHub.
Yes, SENTIENT includes an AI Request node in the Rule Engine that allows integration with AI services like OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, and custom AI endpoints.
Yes, SENTIENT includes built-in AI integration capabilities. You can use the AI Request node to send telemetry data to machine learning models for predictive analytics, anomaly detection, and maintenance scheduling.
See the predictive maintenance example for implementation details.
SENTIENT supports a variety of AI providers, including, but not limited to, OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, and custom API endpoints. Check the AI models page for more details.
Yes, export historical telemetry via REST API or data export features (PE) to train models externally. Deploy trained models as API endpoints and integrate them using the AI Request node.
Yes, see documentation for examples including anomaly detection, and natural language processing.
SENTIENT integration is included, but you need subscriptions to external AI services (OpenAI, Azure, etc.) if using those providers. Custom AI endpoints are entirely under your control.
Community Edition can be installed on:
- On-premise servers or virtual machines. Docker and Kubernetes deployments are supported.
- Cloud platforms: AWS, Microsoft Azure, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud Platform.
Yes, clustering is supported in all deployment options.
See cluster setup guide for configuration details.
Minimum: 2 CPU cores, 4GB RAM for testing.
Recommended for production: 8+ CPU cores, 16GB+ RAM. Requirements scale with device count and message volume.
There are no programmatic software limits on the number of devices in the Community Edition. The capacity of your system depends entirely on your hardware resources, database configuration, and deployment architecture (standalone vs. cluster).
A single modern server can typically handle tens of thousands of devices, while clustered deployments can scale to support millions of concurrent connections.
SENTIENT supports two database approaches:
- Pure SQL: PostgreSQL database which is default and recommended for development and production environments with a reasonable load (< 5000 msg/sec).
- Hybrid database: PostgreSQL + Cassandra for 1M+ devices in production or high data ingestion rate (> 5000 msg/sec).
Yes, the SENTIENT supports multi-tenancy out of the box.
Yes, SENTIENT supports OTA (Over-the-Air) firmware updates.
No. Community Edition has no charges or limits on API requests. However, performance depends on your server capacity and infrastructure.
Yes. SENTIENT Mobile Application is free and open-source (Apache 2.0 license). It's available for iOS and Android and works with SENTIENT Server.
Yes, but security depends on your deployment setup and infrastructure.
SENTIENT provides device authentication, encrypted communication (SSL/TLS), role-based access control, and audit logging.
Yes, the Community Edition includes transport encryption (TLS/SSL).
For data-at-rest encryption, configure database-level encryption. See security documentation for setup instructions.
Yes, the Community Edition includes SSO (Single Sign-On) and OAuth functionality.
See security documentation for setup instructions.
Yes, you have full control over where your data is stored.
SENTIENT supports multiple authentication methods: access tokens, X.509 certificates, and username/password. Each device receives unique credentials. See device authentication options available.
Community Edition supports a straight-forward security model with three main roles: System administrator, Tenant administrator, and Customer user. A system administrator is able to manage tenants, while a tenant administrator manages devices, dashboards, customers, and other entities that belong to a particular tenant. Customer user is able to view dashboards and control devices that are assigned to a specific customer.
Compliance depends on your hosting environment and data security practices.
Yes, SENTIENT supports OAuth2, LDAP, and SAML integration.
Yes, SENTIENT logs user actions.
The SENTIENT team does not provide dedicated support for Community Edition users. Support is community-driven through GitHub (report issues, contribute), Stack Overflow (developer questions), Documentation (guides and tutorials), Youtube channel (tutorials).
Yes, SENTIENT offers consulting, custom development, learning resources, and deployment assistance. Contact us to discuss your requirements.
Report bugs on GitHub Issues. Include detailed reproduction steps, logs, and system information. Community members and maintainers will investigate.
Yes, comprehensive documentation, video tutorials, and sample projects are available. Professional services include custom training programs. See learning resources for more.
Yes, professional services include deployment assistance, architecture review, and production setup. Contact us to discuss your deployment needs.