farmOS vs lightweight record stack for a two-site farm¶
Question¶
Given two physical sites (homestead + distant parcel), is farmOS (Drupal-backed) worth the ops weight, or does a lightweight stack (spreadsheets + HA helpers + minimal DB) fit team size and integration capacity?
Criteria¶
| Criterion | farmOS | Lightweight (e.g. sheets + HA + PostGIS optional) |
|---|---|---|
| Data model | Rich asset/log model; modules | You design discipline; faster to drift |
| Ops burden | PHP/Drupal hosting, updates, backups | Smaller surface; more glue scripts |
| Multi-site / org | One instance can map assets to geometry | You merge two worlds manually |
| Integrations | API, community modules | MQTT → your DB rules |
| Best when | You want auditable agronomic records + maps | You have minimal IT time and narrow scope |
Tradeoff summary¶
- farmOS when records and geometry are central and someone owns hosting hygiene.
- Lightweight when telemetry → action in Home Assistant is 90% of value and records are secondary.
Links¶
Farm data, farmOS, and agriculture lab buildsfarmOS model — Assets (documentation capture),farmOS model — Logs (documentation capture)Telemetry system of record — boundaries and authority— authority matrix for records vs telemetry vs dashboardsDual-site operations model — non-agritourism farm business
Team size and security patching cadence should dominate this choice as much as features.