Fifteen years ago, the Eclipse IoT Working Group began with a straightforward but ambitious goal: make it easier to build machine-to-machine and IoT solutions by collaborating in the open. What started in 2011 as the M2M Industry Working Group, with a small set of founding members including IBM, Sierra Wireless, and Eurotech and a handful of projects, has grown into the world’s largest open source community focused on IoT and edge computing.
Today, November 1st, officially marks 15 years since our journey began. From its inception, Eclipse IoT took a practical approach. Rather than focusing solely on specifications or reference architectures, it prioritised shipping production-ready open source implementations. Early projects such as Eclipse Paho and Eclipse Mosquitto helped establish MQTT as the de facto messaging protocol for IoT, giving developers reliable, multi-language clients and a lightweight broker they could trust. Eclipse Kura delivered a modular Java/OSGi framework that became a foundation for commercial IoT gateways, handling device connectivity, local processing, and cloud integration. Over time, the portfolio expanded to address the full stack from constrained devices to the cloud—with projects like Eclipse Californium (CoAP), Eclipse Leshan and Eclipse Wakaama (LwM2M), Eclipse Ditto (digital twins), Eclipse 4diac (IEC 61499), Eclipse Kapua, and more recent additions such as Eclipse Zenoh, Eclipse Cyclone DDS, and Eclipse iceoryx.
Today, Eclipse IoT technologies power commercial solutions across industrial automation, energy, automotive, smart infrastructure, and beyond with 46 projects, hundreds of contributors, and tens of millions of lines of code. Organisations no longer need to reinvent core connectivity, edge management, or digital twin capabilities from scratch. They can build on proven, vendor-neutral open source components while focusing their innovation on differentiation.
This milestone belongs to the entire community: the project leads and committers who maintain and evolve the code, the member organisations that invest in open collaboration, the developers who integrate these technologies into products, and everyone who has filed issues, improved documentation, or simply chosen open source over proprietary alternatives. The growth from a few early projects to a broad, active ecosystem is a testament to the power of shared investment and permissionless innovation. A big thank you to everyone who made it happen!
Looking ahead, the challenges and opportunities in IoT and edge computing continue to evolve. Bridging IT and OT, supporting software-defined industrial systems, enabling AI at the edge, and delivering secure, scalable solutions across the computing continuum all require the kind of open collaboration Eclipse IoT has fostered for 15 years. The foundation is strong, and the next chapter is already underway.
The Celebration Begins: What’s in Store
Reaching 15 years isn't just a moment to look back—it is an invitation to engage. Over the next six months, leading up to our milestone celebration at Open Community Experience (OCX 2027) in Brussels, we plan to roll out a series of community initiatives:
- Stories and retrospectives: Revisiting the pivotal milestones, early breakthroughs, and real-world adoption stories that shaped open source IoT from 2011 to today.
- Special gatherings and discussions: Bringing the community together to reflect on how far we've come and debate where connected systems head next.
- Surprises and recognition: A few tokens of appreciation, exclusive anniversary items, and community recognitions along the way to celebrate the people behind the code.
Have a creative idea, initiative, or activity you’d love to see as part of the festivities? We’d love to hear your thoughts—reach out, share your ideas, and let’s shape this celebration together!
Our New Interactive Hub: The Eclipse IoT Slack Workspace
A milestone like this isn't meant to be observed from the sidelines. As part of our 15-year celebration, we are officially launching the Eclipse IoT Slack Workspace today to give our ecosystem a dedicated space to connect in real time—with over 100 community members already on board from our early preview.
This workspace is built to be shaped entirely by you. It is a place for real-time peer support where you can ask technical questions, get unstuck, and tap into the collective experience of everyone building across our ecosystem.
Whether you want to share what you are working on, trade project insights, or explore synergies between different architectures, this is where that collaboration happens.
Join Us in the Next 15 Years
Whether you are already part of the community or discovering Eclipse IoT for the first time, there are several ways to get involved:
- Become a member: Help shape the roadmap, collaborate with industry peers, and support the long-term sustainability of the projects.
- Build with the projects: Explore the technologies at iot.eclipse.org, contribute code or documentation, or integrate them into your commercial solutions.
- Join the conversation: Connect directly with the community in our new Eclipse IoT Slack Workspace to ask questions, share insights, and collaborate in real time.
- Share your story: What has been your favorite Eclipse IoT moment, breakthrough, or deployment from the past 15 years? Share your memories with us on Slack or across social media using #EclipseIoT15.
Thank you to everyone who has helped make these first 15 years possible. Here’s to continued open collaboration, practical innovation, and the technologies that will connect the world for the next decade and beyond!
