The lighting control industry is currently dominated by expensive, proprietary ecosystems that often enforce artificial limitations through hardware dongles and closed-source software. Many existing solutions are built upon legacy architectural patterns—monolithic C++ codebases that have been ported forward for decades without rethinking the underlying data flow.
Hyperion was developed to apply modern backend engineering principles to DMX512, shifting away from "black box" controllers towards a transparent, reactive engine that prioritises data integrity and architectural freedom.
- Hardware Entrapment: Most entry-level controllers are non-functional without specific, vendor-locked interfaces, creating a "pay-to-play" barrier for creators. If the vendor discontinues the proprietary software, your physical device is electric trash.
- Architectural Opacity: Proprietary software and the lack of APIs prevents you to use your DMX devices outside the scope of lighting consoles without expensive inefficient tweaks.
- Limited amount of customisation: Once you buy a lightning console or software, you have a very outdated complicated UI which requires a lot of effort to learn. Customising the UI or behaviour of the console to your workflow is only possible to some extend.
- Super expensive hardware: Mid-level lightning controllers cost around 700-2000€. High-End controllers can cost well above 65.000€ (excluding shipping, ofc :D ). Cheaper options below 700€ exists but they come with massive drawbacks and limitations which make them less attractive to use at a party or small event.
Hyperion was born to prove that building a lighting software does not require expensive tech. If you have an old raspberry pi or laptop, you can run hyperion on it. Just hook up any artnet dongle you find online (quality varies), and you are good to go.
- Modern Interface: (Planned)
- Distributed Architecture: Run the backend on your laptop and the DMX output on a Raspberry Pi over the network.
- Hardware Agnostic: Supports Artnet and sACN. Any hardware that understands artnet, can run hyperion.
- API First: Full control via REST API and WebSockets (FastAPI).
Hyperion consists of two main components:
- Hyperion Manages the database, API, and lighting logic.
- Hyperion-core A lightweight service that receives frame data and outputs DMX signals.
- Python 3.14+
- uv or standard pip
Follow the guide in Getting Started
Hyperion is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 or (at your option) any later version.
See LICENSE for more details.
Why not? Running
- Found a bug? Open an Issue.
- Have a feature request? Start a Discussion.
- Security vulnerability? See SECURITY.md.
Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):
 RT 💻 |
This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!