HeyWillow/willow
Open source, local, and self-hosted Amazon Echo/Google Home competitive Voice Assistant alternative observed · 2026-08-28
Health v2 · maintenance only
86/100
- Activity 96
- Release rhythm 70
- Longevity 89
How is this computed?
round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-09-03. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.
- gap_med: 159
- age_days: 1251
- days_rel: 43
- days_push: 29
- n_releases_24m: 4
Adoption not part of the score
3097 stars · 128 forks observed · 2026-08-28
What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded
Willow is an open source, self-hosted voice assistant platform for ESP32-S3-BOX hardware, designed as a privacy-focused alternative to Amazon Echo and Google Home. It combines on-device wake word and optional local command recognition with a companion Willow Inference Server for fast STT, TTS, and LLM inference, integrating primarily with Home Assistant.
Use cases
- build a self-hosted voice assistant to replace Alexa or Google Home
- control Home Assistant devices with voice commands
- run speech-to-text and wake word detection locally for privacy
- flash a voice assistant onto an ESP32-S3-BOX
- create an offline voice command system for smart home automation
- self-host STT, TTS, and LLM inference for voice applications
When to choose
- you want a privacy-focused, fully open source voice assistant with no cloud dependency
- you use Home Assistant or openHAB and want fast voice control
- you want Echo/Google Home-like performance on ~$50 commercial hardware
- you need sub-500ms voice command response times
When to avoid
- you need a plug-and-play consumer product without flashing firmware
- your smart home relies on platforms other than Home Assistant or openHAB
- you need more than ~400 local voice commands without an inference server
- you can't provide a stable 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi environment
Facets
application · maturity active
speech-recognition tts llm-inference embedded iot self-hosted speech-processing iot privacy self-hosted embedded-systems embedded iot self-hosted voice-assistant esp32-s3-box wake-word home-assistant smart-home whisper esp-idf alexa-alternative voice-satellite automation linux
5 sources
- readme: https://github.com/HeyWillow/willow · fetched 2026-08-28 · 27f391e7df9a
- homepage: https://heywillow.org/ · fetched 2026-08-29 · 54c83a3544ad
- site_page: https://heywillow.org/features/Wi-Fi · fetched 2026-08-29 · 29edacf6acb8
- site_page: https://heywillow.org/features/Home-Assistant · fetched 2026-08-29 · ecb9c5c9fce4
- site_page: https://heywillow.org/features/Local-Command-Support · fetched 2026-08-29 · bfb0ffe5b822
Member repositories
| Repository | Role | Health v2 |
|---|---|---|
| HeyWillow/willow | main | 86 |
For agents
markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="HeyWillow/willow")
Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00 · Report a problem