10 Best IoT Platforms for You Next Smart Project

Choosing the best IoT platform is one of the most essential, yet complex decisions when starting the development of a smart product.

As the landscape is solid and rich in multiple variants, we’ve made a list of ten ever-evolving Internet of Things platforms that can revamp your core business processes and push your app live a few times faster.

KAA IoT

Kaa is an open source IoT cloud platform with a customizable and adaptable feature set. Based on project needs, Kaa can scale quickly and effortlessly, matching both evolving startups’ and large enterprises’ business requirements. As the platform tackles the end-to-end deployment of the Internet of Things application, you can be sure that your entire project scope will be covered with a comprehensive solution tremendously faster and cheaper.

Kaa is also easily integrated with any hardware and can manage a great number of devices – even up to millions. Plus, it can separate analytics pipelines for the IoT solution for quicker data processing.

Core features:

• Increased connectivity with standard open protocols
• Increased security with data encryption
• Fast PoC development: hours instead of weeks
• Supports digital twins registration
• Collects data at large scale
• Processes both structured and raw data
• Offers intuitive UI with customized dashboards
• Executes commands remotely
• Automated update of devices with new functions and features

GE Predix

GE Predix is also a cloud-based platform for comprehensive data and asset management. The solution aims to optimize app’s operational efficiency, increase profitability and improve data security. Predictive analytics assist Predix in decision making, providing real-time insights and operating data at the edge.

GE platform works on a two-tier architecture, including digital twins and a Predix machine that collects data from sensors, controllers, analytics and cloud.

Core features:

• Built-in security limits risk
• Automatization adds control
• Data analysis with machine learning
• Mobile cross-platform SDK
• Prevents downtime with thermal imagery

ThingWorx

ThingWorx is one of the pioneers in the IoT platform development, created to build and deploy applications on smart devices. With its end-to-end app architecture development, ThingWorx ensures fast and scalable data processing and modelling.

The platform is flexible enough to adapt and scale its functionality according to business needs. Capable of aligning processed data with the company’s requirements, ThingWorx helps brands deliver innovation and accelerate the IoT product’s time-to-market. Integrated machine learning helps the platform optimize and automate complex data analytics.

Core features:

• Leverage real-time data to the existing enterprise systems
• Optimize business workflow
• Easy device connectivity

Cisco IoT

Cisco IoT is an easy-to-use IoT platform for data management and storage in the cloud. It provides industry-targeted solutions, including specific products, applications and services to improve business efficiency and productivity.

Cisco allows driving more value from your IoT data, extracting it from sources, as well as processing data on distributed nodes and sharing it between distributed apps. The platform’s components are fully virtualized and provided in multiple packages, giving greater agility and flexibility for service providers. The Cisco Virtualized Packet Core brings services for 4G, 3G, WiFi and other networks together into a single solution, scaling their capacity and efficiency.

Core features:

• Cloud-based mobility software suite
• Voice and data connectivity
• Edge application management and deployment
• Real-time location analytics
• High volume data processing in the fog
• Closed-loop system control in real time

Bosch

The Bosch IoT platform is an open-source solution providing middleware services for end-to-end app development. As one of the leading IoT service providers with over 6 million devices connected, Bosch focuses on data protection, aligning platform’s processes with the highest privacy standards and security requirements.

The suite is flexible and adaptable to other platforms and services. It helps to set up seamless IoT integration within cross-domain applications and is accessible for different types of devices.

Core features:

• Growing connectivity and interoperability
• Real-time analytics
• Secure data storage
• App prototyping
• Seamless integration with other platforms

Carriots

The Carriots Internet of Things platform-as-a-service is rapidly gaining popularity among users due to its effortless integration with other platforms and apps. Used for data and device management, Carriots provides increased information security and protection and accelerated connectivity and scalability. Platform’s seven-level hierarchy lets you keep your projects neatly organized and controlled.

Core features:

• SDK application engine
• API key management
• Tracking and debugging logs
• Data export management
• Custom control panel
• Custom risk alerts
• HTTP RESTful API to push and pull XML or JSON encoded data
• 2-way communication protocols

RTI

Being one of the earliest IoT platforms, RTI provides services and solutions across multiple industries. It provides connectivity features to control and manage Internet of Things systems and simplify communication with high-level APIs. The RTI platform allows connecting and easily integrating new assets with existing ones, offering fast and scalable data processing and modelling mechanisms.

RTI reduces upgrade and integration efforts by implementing modularity and increased interoperability between system components. RTI Connext DDS is an open messaging architecture that provides a unified message bus across systems deployed at the edge and in the cloud or data center.

Core features:

• Portable and interoperable product suite
• Compliance with Data
• Distribution Service security standards
• Real-time analytics
• Reliable communication protocols over any network type
• RTI routing service for data bridging
• Peer-to-peer multicast
• High latency
• Autonomous operability
• Services decentralization
• Open architecture
• Set of productivity-enhancing tools

Artik

Being relatively new to the market, the Artik Internet of Things platform is built to seamlessly connect hardware modules with cloud services. 

Providing end-to-end IoT solutions, it is fast and reliable for the product development and management tasks. The set of Artik flexible and presertified modules, divided into families based on their power and capabilities, can tailor to your business needs and drive your IoT products safer and quicker.

Artik cloud services let you collect, store and manage data, as well as securely transfer to and between other devices. Open-standard IoT communication protocols with incorporated link layer security and safety certificates make sure the transmitted data is fully protected.

Core features:

• Easy device management
• Customized modules for improved performance and security
• Protection from hacking
• Easy-to-use APIs and SDKs
• Interoperable core systems
• Enterprise-grade platform

DeviceHive

DeviceHive is yet another feature-packed open-source IoT platform with a wide range of integration options. Having multiple deployment variants, it’s suitable both for small start-ups and mature organizations. The platform allows you to scale a single virtual machine in cloud to a big cluster utilizing the Docker Compose and Kubernetes features. DeviceHive can also handle high-volume data, thus bringing stability to your application.

The solution lets you connect devices via REST API, MQTT and WebSockets, supporting libraries written in different languages. It can easily be integrated with other cloud solutions and platforms, including Alexa, and customize DeviceHive performance with supported protocols and custom coding. The platform enables quick data analytics and real-time processing with Apache Spark and Cassandra. DeviceHive is currently distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.

Core features:

• End-to-end solution management
• Easy app deployment
• Connection of low-end and Wi-Fi enabled devices
• Plugin service features
• Batch analytics with machine learning

Brainbean Apps

Having rich IoT expertise, Brainbean Apps team of experts developed the first modular IoT platform for consumer electronics startups. The platform is designed to unlock the full potential of your application, offering increased connectivity and trusted data exchange between devices via BLE and Wi-Fi.

A comprehensive data dashboard allows you to collect stats and analyze customer input for better decision making and smooth interaction with target audience. The platform also supports cloud storage to keep data securely locked and accessible. Brainbean Apps IoT suite also offers you to leverage machine learning to customize and personalize user experience with smart home appliances.

Core features:

• Interoperability and support for Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings and wearables
• Open APIs and SDKs
• Enhanced security and data protection
• Push notifications and mobile alerts
• Recovery tools
• A single companion app to manage devices
• Access to devices via social media
• Firmware processor

How To Pick The Best Option

With so many IoT platforms on display, choosing a single solution is a tough challenge. Here are the key factors and criteria mapped out that could help you searching for and selecting your perfect IoT match:

Scalability

If you aim your services or products for growth, scalable and adaptable platform is a must! With the growing amount of connected devices, it’s getting more complex to handle the volumes of data collected from them. Implementing machine learning algorithms come in handy in such situations, helping businesses drive efficiency and make better decisions.

Bandwidth and support for protocols

Сonnectivity is usually supported by the M2M communication with the IoT platform running over public cloud. Make sure the platform you choose can handle the largest data pipe your app will produce and that there will be enough room for further growth. To deliver enhanced experiences, the platform should also offer support for both legacy and emerging protocols.

Customizable infrastructure

Make sure the selected platform services can adapt to your organization’s IT landscape. The best variant is a flexible platform, deployable for any infrastructure, cloud, hybrid or on premises.

Security

Security is both the core challenge and the top priority for the entire IT industry. So, considering implementing IoT solutions, make sure every element of the platform ecosystem is protected. Check if your platform vendor offers TLS for communication between system levels — devices, apps and users. Authentication, authorization, secure data management, data encryption and document audition are essential components of a safe IoT platform.

Do you need help in validating your IoT platform and make sure it suits your business needs? Maybe, you still hesitate which one to choose? Or, you’ve already chosen the best one, but don’t know how to align it with your current infrastructure and processes? We are here to help you with any questions you have regarding the Internet of Things solutions, don’t hesitate to approach us at any time.