Host Node-RED without installing anything
Boxes joined by wires, and two pieces of software that never spoke to each other start exchanging — with a little JavaScript only where it is needed.
Starting at €4.99/month
Introduction
Node-RED installed, updated and backed up by us, on a machine in France. Visual flow-based programming to connect devices, APIs and services. Widely used in home automation and light industry. You install nothing and configure no server: the application is online a few minutes after you order, under your own name.
The plan that suits it is App Essentiel at €4.99/month incl. VAT — 2 GB of memory. Node-RED is a single Node.js process that keeps all your flows in memory, along with the context they accumulate and the connections they hold open — an MQTT subscription, a socket to a database, an HTTP listener. The palette matters a lot here: every community module you add brings its own dependencies, and an installation that speaks Modbus, InfluxDB and Telegram weighs considerably more than a bare one. The 2 GB cover a well-stocked palette and several dozen active flows.
People come here to replace an online automation service billed per task, or because something has to act as a meeting point between machines that were never designed to talk. A flow is triggered by an HTTP request, an MQTT message, a time of day or a dropped file, and ends with an API call, a database write or a notification. Flows are JSON: you copy one into a message to share it, paste it onto another instance, and the Projects feature lets you track them in a Git repository. A web dashboard is built in the same editor, which saves writing an interface just to display three curves.
What managed hosting changes
Flows you can read at a glance
You drop a trigger, draw a wire to a filter, then to an API call, and the whole thing reads like a diagram. When the visual is not enough, a function node accepts JavaScript: you descend to code only where it earns its place.
A palette that speaks many protocols
MQTT, HTTP, WebSocket, TCP and UDP as standard, then thousands of community modules: Modbus TCP, SQL databases, InfluxDB, Telegram, Home Assistant, calendars. That library is why Node-RED can usually connect to what you already run.
A dashboard in the same tool
Gauges, charts, buttons and forms are declared as nodes and assemble into a web page. Simple supervision therefore exists without a development project, and it lives in the same place as the logic feeding it.
Flows that share and version well
An exported flow is a JSON object you paste into a ticket or a document, and that somebody else imports as it is. The Projects feature adds a Git repository, so you can follow the history and roll back after an unfortunate change.
Why hand it over rather than install it
Two systems that do not speak
The shop sends a webhook, the management tool expects an API call in a different shape. A five-node flow does the translation, and copying orders by hand stops.
Sensors publishing over MQTT
Temperature, humidity, consumption: readings arrive on an MQTT topic, are filtered, stored in a time-series database and shown on a page. The alert goes out when a threshold is crossed.
Shop-floor supervision
A controller reachable over Modbus TCP is read every minute, the values are logged, and a screen shows the state of the machines. For reporting and alerting, that is often enough.
A notification chain
A submitted form triggers a database record, a message to the team and an acknowledgement to the requester. Three systems, one flow, and you watch the messages go by in the debug pane.
A scheduled job without writing cron
Every Monday at seven, call an API, compare with yesterday, send a summary. The scheduler is a node, and the result is tested with one click instead of waiting for Monday.
Hosted in France
A flow holds API keys, database credentials and sometimes production data. Yours stays in our own infrastructure in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, which we operate ourselves.
Frequently asked questions
Yes for anything that travels over the network, no for anything that plugs in over USB. An instance with us has no Zigbee stick and no Z-Wave dongle: those devices have to stay at your place. The arrangement that works is a small box at home handling the radio and publishing to an MQTT broker reachable from the internet; Node-RED subscribes to it and carries all the logic, the alerts and the dashboard. If your equipment already exposes an API or MQTT, there is nothing to install at home at all.
By copy and paste. An exported flow is a JSON object: you copy it from your current installation, import it here, and it reassembles with its nodes and wires. Two things to check afterwards: credentials, which are never exported and have to be typed again, and the community modules the flow uses, which must be installed in the palette before it will run.
Node-RED runs in a single thread: a heavy loop in a function node blocks every other flow until it finishes. Nor is it a real-time controller — timing is not guaranteed to the millisecond, which rules out safety control. Installing a module from the palette requires restarting the runtime, so a short interruption. And the editor must be password-protected: an editable flow is an editable server.
App Essentiel, at €4.99/month incl. VAT. It provides 2 GB of memory where the application asks for 768 MB at minimum: the headroom serves the system, not the decor. You can change plan later without reinstalling.
Yes, they are part of the service. On a tool that exposes HTTP endpoints and holds your API keys, staying current is not optional: version upgrades are applied and checked by us.