Are my flows kept across restarts?

Yes. Flows are saved to your instance's persistent storage as soon as you click Deploy. Restarting the service automatically reloads your flows and resumes their execution.

How do I connect Node-RED to an MQTT broker or IoT devices?

Use the native MQTT nodes: set your broker address and the topics to subscribe to or publish on. Node-RED then subscribes to your sensor messages and can publish commands to your connected devices.

How do I add community nodes?

From the editor menu, open the palette manager, Install tab. Search for the node you want among the 4000+ published modules, then install it. It appears in your palette right away.

How does it compare with n8n?

Node-RED favours a lower-level, flow-oriented approach geared toward IoT, with MQTT nodes and wire-by-wire logic, ideal for real-time and embedded automation. n8n leans more toward business automation focused on SaaS integrations. Both are self-hostable; the choice depends on your use cases.

Automate business processes.

Node-RED

Automate your flows and connect your APIs with drag and drop, no code required.

512 MB minimum RAM 1 vCPU Available

Node-RED brings flow-based programming to your automations. Instead of writing scripts, you drag nodes onto a canvas and connect them with wires to describe how data should move and be transformed. It natively creates webhooks and HTTP endpoints, speaks MQTT for IoT, and lets you assemble full REST APIs without code. With over 4000 community nodes, you can integrate almost any service. Running self-hosted on your server keeps your data sovereign and your integrations entirely under your control.

Key features

Visual flow-based editor with drag and drop, to compose automations without code.

More than 4000 community nodes available, covering most services and protocols.

Native creation of webhooks and HTTP endpoints straight from your flows.

MQTT and IoT protocol support to drive sensors and connected devices.

Build full REST APIs without writing code, exposed by your own flows.

Full data sovereignty: the instance is self-hosted on your server.

When to use this solution?

1

Orchestrate third-party APIs

Wire several web services together: fetch data from one API, transform it in a function node and send the result to another service, all within a visual flow.

2

Drive IoT devices

Receive sensor readings over MQTT, apply decision logic and trigger actions on your connected devices in real time.

3

Expose webhooks and automations

Create HTTP endpoints that react to events from your tools (forms, payments, alerts) and chain the processing without a dedicated application server.

Deploy Node-RED on your VPS

Guide optimized for ServOrbit Cloud VPS.

01

Open the Node-RED dashboard

After installing from the marketplace, open the URL provided to reach the Node-RED editor. The interface loads straight in your browser, ready to use.

02

Explore the visual flow editor

Get familiar with the workspace: the node palette on the left, the flow canvas in the centre where you wire nodes together, and the info panel on the right. This is where all your automations are built.

03

Create a first flow

Drag an HTTP-in (webhook) node, wire it to a function node to process the data, then to a response node. Deploy the flow: your first automation now answers incoming calls.

04

Install community nodes

Open the palette manager from the menu, search for the node you need among the thousands available, and install it in one click to extend your instance.

05

Connect to external services

Configure an MQTT node to your broker, a database node or a REST request node to plug your flows into your existing systems and move data end to end.

Frequently asked questions

No, the Node-RED editor enables no admin authentication by default. Securing access as soon as it goes live is strongly recommended: turn on editor authentication in the configuration and place the instance behind protected access before any public exposure.

Embed the deploy button

Maintaining a project that uses Node-RED? This button lets your readers deploy it on a VPS in one click, without reading Docker documentation.

Markdown

[![Deploy Node-RED on ServOrbit](https://servorbit.com/brand/deploy/button.svg)](https://servorbit.com/vps-cloud?template=node-red&utm_source=deploy-badge&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=node-red)

HTML

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The button points to a VPS order with the template preselected. The image is served from servorbit.com — nothing to host on your side.

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