WLED VS xLights

Compare WLED vs xLights and see what are their differences.

WLED

Control WS2812B and many more types of digital RGB LEDs with an ESP8266 or ESP32 over WiFi! (by Aircoookie)

xLights

xLights is a sequencer for Lights. xLights has usb and E1.31 drivers. You can create sequences in this object oriented program. You can create playlists, schedule them, test your hardware, convert between different sequencers. (by xLightsSequencer)
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WLED xLights
599 8
13,864 491
- 1.2%
9.5 9.8
5 days ago 8 days ago
C++ C++
MIT License GNU General Public License v3.0 only
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

WLED

Posts with mentions or reviews of WLED. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-12-11.

xLights

Posts with mentions or reviews of xLights. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-03-25.
  • xLights site down?
    1 project | /r/xlights | 6 Jun 2023
    I have reached out to one of the devs .. if it is downloads you need then you can grab it here. https://github.com/smeighan/xLights/releases
  • Do Not Update XLights
    2 projects | /r/TeslaLightShow | 25 Mar 2023
    The latest update 2023_4 changes something about the .fseq files. They won't validate and don't play on the car. You can download older versions here (I'm on 2023.1)
  • Faces in Test menu?
    1 project | /r/xlights | 30 Jan 2023
    If you want the devs to read your suggestion, post it on the github https://github.com/smeighan/xLights/issues
  • Twinkly and XLights Set Up
    1 project | /r/xlights | 28 Nov 2022
    So I *think* I have Twinkly and XLights set up correctly but as I am having some issues (https://github.com/smeighan/xLights/issues/3458) I want to sanity check my set up. I found this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNRMY2xzfrk) but my version of XLights is different and the process flow and options etc also. I'm on a Mac running v2022.23.
  • Send to lights crash (macOS)
    1 project | /r/xlights | 16 Nov 2022
  • Where's Moncton's tech enthusiasts at 👀
    2 projects | /r/moncton | 9 Jan 2022
    I don't think you need that much for it to work. I've seen so many cool light shows synchronized with music. You can use a Raspberry Pi and install on it Falcon Player ( FFP ) and connect everything through a network and maybe try on your laptop / pc a program called xLights to make some interesting stuff.
  • There are over 1000 individually addressable LEDs in this room!
    2 projects | /r/pcmasterrace | 23 Dec 2021
    On my PC, I use XLights to wirelessly connect to the controller, map my room and program the LEDs.
  • xLights.AppImage running as xSchedule
    1 project | /r/xlights | 10 Dec 2021

What are some alternatives?

When comparing WLED and xLights you can also consider the following projects:

Tasmota - Alternative firmware for ESP8266 and ESP32 based devices with easy configuration using webUI, OTA updates, automation using timers or rules, expandability and entirely local control over MQTT, HTTP, Serial or KNX. Full documentation at

fpp - Falcon Player

FastLED - The FastLED library for colored LED animation on Arduino. Please direct questions/requests for help to the FastLED Reddit community: http://fastled.io/r We'd like to use github "issues" just for tracking library bugs / enhancements.

light-show - Tesla Light Show

NightDriverStrip - NightDriver client for ESP32

OpenRGB

LedFx - LedFx is a network based LED effect controller with support for advanced real-time audio effects! LedFx can control multiple devices and works great with cheap ESP8266 nodes allowing for cost effectvice syncronized effects across your entire house!

hyperion.ng - The successor to Hyperion aka Hyperion Next Generation

CorsairLightingProtocol - Control LEDs connected to an Arduino with iCUE, create an unofficial Corsair iCUE compatible Arduino LED controller.

arduino-esp32 - Arduino core for the ESP32

Arduino-HomeKit-ESP8266 - Native Apple HomeKit accessory implementation for the ESP8266 Arduino core.

homeassistant-pixelblaze - This is a custom component to allow control of Pixelblaze devices in Home Assistant.