Updated October 2026. No IoT platform is best for every project, but one is usually the best fit for yours, and you find it faster when you know what each vendor is built to do. An IoT platform is the software that receives data from sensors and machines, stores it, shows it on dashboards and runs the rules that alert people or switch equipment. Below are eight IoT platforms in one table, a short entry for each, the criteria that separate them and what each costs at 25, 100 and 500 devices.

This is Kilo's own blog. We make Kilo, so read its entry with that in mind. The list is alphabetical, and position says nothing about quality. Third-party prices are published list prices in October 2026, before tax, in the vendor's currency.

In short

  • Who builds the application, which radios you use, who signs in and where the software runs separate the best IoT solutions more than feature lists do.
  • AWS IoT Core is a cloud building block. The other seven are application platforms with dashboards and rules included.
  • At 100 devices, the published plans below range from $49 to €399 a month, and the unit each vendor bills on matters as much as the price.
  • A two-week trial with your own devices, one rule and one data export tells you more than any feature list.

Top IoT platform companies in 2026

Platform Best fit Pricing model Hosting
akenza Integrators managing many sensors Base fee plus per-device fee Cloud, private cloud
AWS IoT Core Developer teams on AWS Pay per use AWS cloud
Datacake LoRaWAN sensor rollouts Device tiers, 5 devices free Cloud
Kilo Mixed equipment with automation Device tiers, free plan Cloud or on-premise
Losant Industrial equipment makers Custom quote Cloud plus edge agent
TagoIO Apps your customers log into Plan plus usage Cloud or dedicated instance
ThingsBoard Teams that self-host and customize Devices plus data points Self-hosted or cloud
Ubidots Branded monitoring apps Per device plus per value Cloud, private deployment

akenza

akenza is a Zurich-based cloud platform with a library of ready-made device types and a rule engine for comparisons and geofences. Genio, its built-in AI helper, answers questions about sensor data. Best fit: integrators and facility teams looking after many sensors. Pricing: a monthly base fee ($0 on Elemental, $199 on Advanced) plus $1.50 per device, falling to $1.40 above 500 devices. Watch out for: you pay per device from device one, and data beyond each plan's included units costs extra.

AWS IoT Core

Amazon's managed service links devices to other AWS services. It bundles a message broker, a device gateway (MQTT, WebSockets, HTTPS), a registry for device identities, Device Shadow, which keeps the last reported and the desired state of every device, and a rules engine that forwards messages into other parts of AWS. AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN removes the need for your own network server. Best fit: teams with cloud developers. Pricing: pay per use with no minimum. Watch out for: AWS lists no dashboards or visualization among IoT Core's features, so budget engineering time for everything users will see.

Datacake

Datacake is a cloud for monitoring sensors that runs its own LoRaWAN network server (the service that takes radio packets from gateways, drops duplicate copies and decrypts the payload). Every plan includes unlimited LoRaWAN gateways. Best fit: LoRaWAN rollouts without network infrastructure of your own. Pricing: five devices free, then €25 a month for 25 devices, €159 for 50, €399 for 200 and €659 for 1,000. Watch out for: the reporting engine starts at the €399 Standard plan, and advanced rules are capped per plan.

Kilo

Kilo is built to be an IoT and physical AI operating system, the layer where sensors, machines and AI from different makers and protocols share data and act together. It includes a LoRaWAN network server, rules can trigger stored commands on equipment that supports them, and a debugger lets you walk a rule step by step, skipping or mocking its alarms and commands, before deployment. Best fit: integrators and operators connecting mixed equipment who also need automation. Pricing: the free plan never expires and includes 5 devices, a dashboard and a rule; Starter costs €25 monthly for 25 devices, with unlimited gateways and no per-user fees. Watch out for: Modbus, BACnet and OPC UA equipment reaches Kilo through an MQTT edge gateway, which you add for it.

Losant

Losant is an application platform for enterprises, built around a visual workflow engine. Workflows built in its cloud editor can also run on gateways, and its Gateway Edge Agent speaks industrial protocols such as Modbus, OPC UA, BACnet and Siemens S7. In February 2026 SUSE bought Losant and said it plans to open-source the technology. Best fit: industrial equipment makers and large operators. Pricing: custom quotes. Watch out for: you can't estimate cost without a sales conversation, and terms may change after the acquisition.

TagoIO

TagoIO is a cloud platform for applications your own customers sign in to. Work is split into profiles, separate spaces that typically hold one client. Best fit: solution providers serving many customers. Pricing: free for 5 devices; Starter from $49 a month (two profiles, up to 100 devices each), Scale from $199 and a dedicated instance from $850. White-labeling is a $99-a-month add-on. Watch out for: anything above the plan's allowance, such as data transactions, storage and notifications, is billed on top.

ThingsBoard

ThingsBoard collects, processes and visualizes device data, with rule chains and dashboards built from ready-made or custom widgets. You can run it yourself, use ThingsBoard Cloud or order a private cloud, with an Edge add-on for local processing. From version 4.4 it's source-available under the Business Source License 1.1. Best fit: developer teams that want deep customization. Pricing: Cloud plans are sized by devices and monthly data points, from Free (5 devices) through $49 (50), $149 (100) and $399 (500). Watch out for: production use beyond the license's Additional Use Grant needs a commercial license, and self-hosting puts upgrades and backups on your team.

Ubidots

Ubidots offers a cloud app builder for IoT applications under your own brand, plus tools to bill your end customers. Best fit: companies selling monitoring under their own name. Pricing: Professional costs $99 monthly and includes 50 devices; each extra device is $2, up to 1,000. Watch out for: data is metered in "dots," meaning single values. Ten million are included each month, every further million costs $5, and sensors that report often push the bill up.

Side-by-side pages compare Kilo with ThingsBoard, Datacake, akenza, TagoIO, Ubidots and Losant.

What is an IoT application enablement platform?

An IoT application enablement platform (AEP) turns raw device messages into a working application: device management, storage, dashboards, rules, alerts, user accounts and APIs, ready to configure instead of build. Seven of the eight platforms above are AEPs. AWS IoT Core is a connectivity and routing service, as is Azure IoT Hub on Microsoft's cloud, so your developers write the application on top.

The difference shows up in staffing more than features. A building-block service can cost very little per month, but someone has to write the alert logic, logins and permissions and keep them running. With an AEP you pay a subscription and configure. When people ask what the best IoT platform solutions are, they're often asking which of these two paths to take. Microsoft announced in September 2026 that Azure IoT Central, its own application layer, retires on September 20, 2029, and pointed customers to IoT Hub.

How do you choose the best IoT platform?

Staffing comes first. Developers who'll own the software for years can work with a building-block service or a deeply extensible platform such as ThingsBoard. Facility managers, integrators and operations staff go live sooner where dashboards, rules and alerts already exist.

Next, list your devices. LoRaWAN sensors need a network server, which some platforms include while others leave you to host or rent one. Cellular and Wi-Fi devices typically talk to the cloud directly over MQTT or HTTPS. Equipment speaking Modbus, BACnet or OPC UA needs an edge gateway or edge agent to translate.

Then decide who logs in. Your own team needs roles and permissions. Customers who log in need separate spaces, often your branding and sometimes billing tools, which TagoIO and Ubidots build for and others sell as add-ons.

Settle where the software must run. Self-hosting or a private cloud matters when sites are offline, a contract demands it or data residency rules apply, and it moves upgrades and backups to your team. Read the license as carefully as the feature list.

Finally, decide whether the system only watches or also acts. Monitoring needs dashboards and alerts. Switching relays, valves or HVAC setpoints needs device commands, and a way to test automation before it touches equipment.

How to evaluate an IoT platform

Give two or three shortlisted platforms the same two-week trial:

  1. Register two of the exact device models you plan to buy and compare decoded readings with the device's own display.
  2. Build the dashboard your operators will open, then check it on a phone.
  3. Write one alert rule and run it with a reading that should trigger it and one that shouldn't. Check whether alarms and commands can be skipped or simulated during the test, so nobody gets paged and no valve moves.
  4. Change the rule, then return to the previous version, and note what the running automation did meanwhile.
  5. Invite a colleague with limited access and check what they can see.
  6. Export a week of raw data and open it in another tool.
  7. Read the usage page and scale it to your planned device count.

Questions to ask IoT platform providers

These questions separate IoT platform providers quickly:

  • Do you have payload decoders for these exact device models? Supporting a protocol doesn't mean supporting every product that uses it.
  • What exactly do you meter, and what happens when I go over: extra billing, throttling or blocked data?
  • How do raw history, devices, dashboards and rules export, and can LoRaWAN device keys move to another network server without visiting every sensor?
  • How much notice would I get if this product were discontinued? Google announced the end of Cloud IoT Core in August 2022 and switched it off on August 16, 2023.
  • What support hours and uptime commitment come with the plan I would buy?

How much do IoT software companies charge?

IoT software companies bill on different units, from devices and data points to messages, input transactions or single values. Here is what each published plan costs as one project grows:

Platform 25 devices 100 devices 500 devices
akenza (Elemental) $37.50 $150 $750
Datacake €25 €399 €659
Kilo €25 €145 €379
TagoIO $49 $49 from $199
ThingsBoard Cloud $49 $149 $399
Ubidots $99 $199 $999
AWS IoT Core Usage-based Usage-based Usage-based
Losant Quote Quote Quote

Per-device pricing, as at akenza and at Ubidots above 50 devices, grows in a straight line. Tiered pricing jumps at tier boundaries, so where your device count lands matters.

Data volume can outweigh device count. Take 100 sensors, each sending four values every 10 minutes: about 1.73 million values a month. That sits well inside ThingsBoard's 100 million data points at 100 devices and Ubidots' 10 million values, but above the 1 million inputs in TagoIO Starter, which counts every variable in a message as one input, so usage billing starts there.

None of these figures covers sensors, gateways, installation or connectivity. Kilo Electronics stocks LoRaWAN sensors and devices, and devices from any supplier work with any compatible platform. Our IoT platform pricing guide covers plan limits in more detail.

Best IoT platform FAQ

Which free IoT platform is best?

Cloud free tiers of around five devices suit a pilot. ThingsBoard's self-managed subscription has a free tier for up to 100 devices on one production instance, but you pay for and run the server. Under its Business Source License, every release becomes Apache 2.0 licensed four years after its release date, and pre-4.4 versions keep Apache 2.0.

Which is the best IoT platform for developers?

AWS IoT Core suits developers who want building blocks. New accounts get a 12-month free tier covering, each month, 2.25 million connection minutes, 500,000 messages, 225,000 registry or shadow operations, and 250,000 rules triggered plus 250,000 actions. AWS IoT Events, Amazon's service for spotting events in device data, reached end of support on May 20, 2026, and its users had to rebuild that logic elsewhere.

Which IoT platform is best for LoRaWAN?

First match the frequency plan to your region: EU863-870 in Europe, US902-928 in the US, Canada and South America, IN865-867 in India. Sensors, gateways and network server must all use the same plan. Next, settle who operates the network server: a platform that includes one saves a separate service, while AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN costs $2.30 for every million messages in US East.

Pick one room that already causes worry, such as a server room or a cold store, and fit it with three temperature sensors and a door contact. Build one dashboard and one rule that alerts the on-call person when the temperature stays above your limit for ten minutes, and run the rule with test readings before it goes live. That project fits Kilo's free plan of five devices, one dashboard and one rule, which you can open without payment details; the sensors are bought separately.