A five-minute tour of what FlowFuse is, how it fits the way your team works, and why it pays off. No jargon — just the understanding you need to know if it's right for you. When you want the technical detail, every stop links to the full documentation.
FlowFuse is the industrial application platform — the place you build the applications that actually run your operation. It sits on top of the data and machines you already have, and unlike a closed product, it's open and yours to own.
What You Build
Your ApplicationsOEE, dashboards, integrations, alerts, MES-style apps
↑ runs on
You Own This
The Platform
FlowFusebuild · deploy · govern — on managed Node-RED
↑ sits on
What You Already Have
Your Data & MachinesPLCs, sensors, brokers, historians, ERPs
Why That's Different
Open, Not a Black Box
Built on open-source Node-RED. You can see and change how everything works.
Yours to Own
Run it on your infrastructure or ours. Your flows are portable — no lock-in.
The Layer Above Your Data
It sits on top of the brokers, historians and machines you already run.
Go deeper · technical reference
The technical documentation covers the how-to in detail.
The plant floor, the business systems, and the devices in the field are different worlds — but the same platform and the same building blocks serve all three. That's how one company standardizes on FlowFuse instead of a tool per team.
Anyone can connect a PLC to a dashboard once. The reason teams standardize on FlowFuse is what happens next — shipping fast, governing centrally, scaling everywhere, and never getting locked in.
Speed to Value
First app running in days, not a multi-year project. Reuse building blocks and ship changes through pipelines.
One Platform, Every Team
OT, IT and field teams build on the same governed foundation — no silos, one standard.
Own It, No Lock-In
Open and built on Node-RED. Run it on your infrastructure or ours, and take your work with you.
Scales Without Breaking
From one line to thousands of sites and devices — the same pieces, centrally managed.
Here's every piece working together in one real application: OEE — how much good product a line makes versus its potential — from the machine at the edge to a live dashboard in the cloud.
At the Edge — Built Once, Rolled Out per Line
Line AEdge block
Line BEdge block
Line CEdge block
Publish machine state over MQTT / UNS
Team Broker
Machine Stateedge → cloud
Subscribe · Write History
In the Cloud
Data-Driven Appcomputes + shows OEE
Time-Series DBhistory & trends
Edge Block
Reads machine signals at the edge and publishes state. Built once, rolled out to every line.
Team Broker
Carries machine state from edge to cloud. The edge publishes; the cloud app subscribes.
Data-Driven App
Computes availability, performance and quality, and shows the OEE dashboard.
Time-Series DB
Every reading is written so trends can be charted over time.
Four pieces, two connections — and you can see how the same pattern powers everything from energy monitoring to full MES.