Comparison

MQTT Commander vs IoTFlow

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

MQTT Commander

Monitor your MQTT broker's activity in real-time with live topic updates and detailed payload inspection. Visualize data trends, manage messages, and publish new ones with advanced options. Troubleshoot connection issues with a guided diagnostic tool.

Highlights
  • Live topic tree with values
  • Detailed payload inspection with sparklines
  • Pinned topics as live tiles
  • Message logging and filtering
  • Publishing messages with QoS and retain
  • 13-stage connection diagnostic tool
  • Privacy-focused data handling
Features
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Connect to your broker and the topic tree fills in within seconds, with the latest value next to each topic. Tap one to see the value in large type, a sparkline of how it moved, and the JSON split field by field. FOUR SCREENS, ONE JOB EACH • Topics: the tree of what your broker publishes, with filters for what changes, what is retained, what you pinned • Board: pinned topics as live tiles, so one look tells you the greenhouse sits at 21.4 °C and the pump went quiet 6 minutes ago • Log: messages in order, with presets for errors, your own publishes and retained values • Publish: a topic, a payload, Send. QoS, retain, content type and expiry sit one tap away USE IT TO • Watch Home Assistant, Zigbee2MQTT, Mosquitto and ESPHome without opening a laptop • Find the topic a new device announced itself on • Read a JSON payload by field and compare it with the message before • Send a test message and see what the broker answers, including a refusal • Clear a retained payload that keeps coming back WHEN IT WON'T CONNECT Connection Doctor walks the connection in 13 stages and names the one that failed: DNS, TCP, TLS handshake, certificate chain, expiry, hostname, ALPN and SNI, CONNACK, authentication, protocol version, and a write test against the broker ACL. You get the stage, the reason and what to change, instead of a red banner. PRIVACY Values that look like tokens, passwords or keys stay behind a tap. Exported logs carry hashed topics and metadata, no payloads. Anonymous crash and usage diagnostics are on by default and switch off in Settings. No ad tracking, no data sold. PRO The app is free: watch topics, read payloads, publish with QoS and retain, run the Connection Doctor, pin five topics to the Board. Pro is a one-time unlock with no subscription, and it covers the part that runs while you look elsewhere: widgets on the Lock Screen and Home Screen, pins without a limit, history that survives a restart, whole-broker discovery, more broker profiles, one certificate reused across every broker, saved commands with Siri and Shortcuts, log export as CSV or JSON, and the full Doctor report to share. Bought the paid app before it went free? You keep Pro at no cost. WORKS WITH Home Assistant, Mosquitto, Zigbee2MQTT, ESPHome, Node-RED, ESP32 and ESP8266, and any broker speaking MQTT 3.1.1 or 5.0 over TCP, TLS, mTLS or WebSocket. REQUIREMENTS • iOS 17 or later, iPhone and iPad • Local Network access for brokers on your LAN Demo mode lets you look around before you connect anything.

About

IoTFlow

Features
Read full description

IoTFlow is the mobile client for the IoTFlow IoT platform. Monitor your connected devices, view real-time telemetry and stay on top of alerts from anywhere. FEATURES • Dashboard — see total, online and offline device counts and active alerts at a glance. • Live telemetry — watch the latest sensor readings stream in from your devices. • Devices — browse every device with status, protocol (HTTP, MQTT, WebSocket) and last-seen time. • Device detail — inspect device IDs, telemetry counts, location and metadata. • Add devices — register a new device and get its connection token in seconds. • Alerts — review recent alerts so you never miss an offline device or threshold breach. • Self-hosted ready — point the app at your own IoTFlow server in Settings. Just exploring? Tap “Explore demo” on the sign-in screen to try the whole app with sample data — no account required. IoTFlow connects to your IoTFlow backend; a free account on the platform lets you manage your own devices and telemetry.

Screenshots

MQTT Commander4 screens
IoTFlow4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: MQTT Commander at every 5 days against IoTFlow's every 9 days. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

MQTT Commander ships an update every 5 days, IoTFlow every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on September 3, 2026 and September 11, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 8 level
MQTT Commander versus IoTFlow: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMQTT CommanderIoTFlow
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 5 days — betterEvery 9 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details — not scored
Size22 MB1 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperVladimir ChemerisAlfred Ang

In-app purchases

None

MQTT Commander

No in-app purchases

None

IoTFlow

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is MQTT Commander free?
MQTT Commander is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is IoTFlow free?
IoTFlow is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do MQTT Commander or IoTFlow have ads?
Neither MQTT Commander nor IoTFlow shows ads.
Which is updated more often, MQTT Commander or IoTFlow?
MQTT Commander ships an update every 5 days, and IoTFlow every 9 days. Most recently, MQTT Commander was updated on September 3, 2026 and IoTFlow on September 11, 2026.

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