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I fall for it every time, and this time I have had enough.
Read on if you want to know what this is about.
It started a few year ago.
First there was Blynk.I was using Blynk for several projects. You could use their free service on which you could use a limited amount of IOT devices. But you could also install your own Blynk server on a Raspberry Pi and then you could use unlimited devices. And suddenly they switched to Blynk 2. The free server was removed from Github and the accompaning App was removed from Android Play.
Blynk 2 had at that time just a very limited free use. So that was the end of it.
Then there was IFTTT. They suddenly stopped allowing users to use free webhooks. You needed a payed subscription for that. So for using IFTTT with your IOT projects you suddenly needed a payed subscription. So that was the end of it.
Appybuilder, which was an app-building system based on MIT's App Inventor ceased working some time ago.
And the list goes on and on. Several services start giving their customers free access and then suddenly become paid services or quit alltogether.
And now Dweet
I have made some projects with dweet.io and published several stories about this service on this weblog. If you have no clue about what Dweet is read this story first:
https://lucstechblog.blogspot.com/2019/05/dweet-volatile-iot-cloud-service.html
And just January this year they quit too.
This was the message they posted on Twitter (X).
And that really pisses me off as there were lots of users.
So all the projects you made with Dweet.io just stopped working.
And what's more: this also shuts Freeboard down.
For those in the dark: Freeboard is a free IOT dashboard that offers buttons, switches, gauges, leds etc, etc. etc. With this you can make your own IOT dashboard for free but....... it relys on Dweet.io
And to be frank I loved Dweet for being free and it's simplicity.
Dweet users to the rescue.
I was not the only one who was pissed for being disappointed for the umpteenth time.
A few clever users came to the rescue and started a free public Dweet server by themselves. But there is a catch.
dweet.cc
It is free and uses nearly the same API.
The catch is that you need to change dweet.io into dweet.cc in the API calls.
dweet.me
Another alternative for dweet.io Dweet.me started 15 March 2025 and claim that they already had more than 1 million dweets on April 24 2025.
On the positive side it is just as free as dweet.io was, and it even offers someting extra. Dweet.io saved the last 5 messages. Dweet.me saves the last 8 messages.
On the negative side the website mentiones it is rate limited, although it does not state what the maximum rate is. And the API calls are more deviant from the dweet.io ones.
This means that you need a bit more altering your projects code.
dweetr.io
This is the last alternative I found. At the moment of this writing the number of dweets used was 57. Not a lot really. And there is a catch. You can only have 2 "things" for free. If you need more you will need a pro subscription. On the positive side: the subscriptions are cheap 25USD for 25 things and 49USD for 50 things for a period of 5 year !!!
The dweetr.io API looks similar to the original dweet.io. You need to change dweet.io into dweetr.io in the API call.
The API calls
I am going to show you the basic API call to send a dweet for the original dweet.io and for the 3 alternatives. So you can see for yourself what changes are needed to use the service.
Send dweet with dweet.io
This will not work anymore, but for comparing purpose only.
https://dweet.io/dweet/for/my-thing-name?hello=world
Send a dweet with dweet.cc
https://dweet.cc/dweet/for/my-thing-name?hello=world
Send a dweet with dweet.me
https://dweet.me:3334/publish/yoink/for/my-thing-name?hello=world
Send a dweet with dweetr.io
http://dweetr.io/dweet/for/my-thing-name?hello=world
As you can see the changes are minimal. Nevertheless you need to alter all your original dweet.io projects.
Which one to choose.
Well that is a difficult question.
Both dweet.cc and dweet.me claim to already have processed more than a million dweets. So it looks like their servers are robust. Dweet.me mentions on their website that it is rate limited and I send them a mail about that. Next to that their API is a bit different so dweet.cc looks like the better choice.
The limitation of just 2 "things" for the free tier makes dweetr.io the least attractive choice.
Mail me if you want the sourcecode for micropython or Arduino code for dweet.cc if you do not get this working. And maybe I am going to do a story about this anyhow.
And Freeboard ?
Freeboard will not work with any of these alternatives right out of the box.
I am going to try to get it working again but that might take some time, if I get it to work at all.........
But I had enough !!!
That's what I wrote at the beginning of this story.
And I am really fed up with companies or private individuals that offer IOT services for free and after a while start charging for subscriptions or quit the service all together.
And like you have seen in this story. There are alternatives to Dweet.io and just like the original they are free to use. But how long will it take for the developer to get fed up with it and shuts the service down, or decides it costs too much bandwidth and needs to charge money for the service.
So what is the real alternative.
Well, to put up your own server at home using a cheap Raspberry Pi or a small (obsolete) PC. That is what I am researching now for my future IOT projects. A Raspberry Zero is quite capable running a dweet alike service and will set you back just a few dollar/euro. So that is a serious option.
I'll keep you up to date through this blog, so keep returning here.
Till next time,
Luc Volders
