perch vs dakboard
A DAKboard alternative that runs on your Pi, free, with no account.
DAKboard is a hosted product: you sign in, you build a screen in their editor, and their servers render it. That is genuinely less work, and for a family calendar in a kitchen it is a reasonable thing to pay for. Perch is the other shape entirely — it runs on your own board, on your own network, with no account to make and nothing to subscribe to, and the configuration is a JSON file on your own disk. A button you press to talk to whatever AI you already own — OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, an Ollama model running on the Pi itself with nothing leaving the house, or the coding agent already open in your terminal.
side by side
| Perch | DAKboard | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Your board, your LAN | Their cloud, rendered to your screen |
| Account | None. There is nothing to sign in to | Required |
| Price | Free, MIT, no tiers | Free tier, paid plans above it |
| Works offline | Clock, calendar and machines do; voice does if the model is local | Needs their service |
| Voice to your own AI | Yes — any endpoint, including one on the Pi | No |
| Your data | Stays on the device; secrets are write-only | On their servers |
| Customising it | A folder of code you own, plus a drag-to-arrange console | Their layout editor |
| Touch | Yes, and it acts on your house | Display-oriented |
| Lock-in | Hand-editable JSON on your disk | Their account, their format |
When DAKboard is the better answer
- You want zero maintenance. Somebody else runs the service, and that has real value.
- The screen is for a household rather than for you. A polished photo-and-calendar wall display that non-technical people can use is exactly what DAKboard is good at.
- You do not want to touch a terminal at all. Perch is one clone and one install script, but that is still one clone and one install script.
- You want their commercial support and a company to email.
When Perch is the better answer
- You do not want a subscription for a screen on your own desk.
- You do not want your calendar and your house rendered on somebody else’s servers.
- You want it to keep working when their service, or your internet, does not.
- You want to talk to it, and you want to choose what answers — including a model that never leaves your house.
- You want to add something they do not offer, without waiting for them to offer it.
while you are deciding
Is there a free alternative to DAKboard for Raspberry Pi?
Perch is free and MIT licensed, with no paid tier and no account. MagicMirror² is the other well-known free option and is a good one, particularly if you want a mirror or need a module that already exists. Which fits depends on whether you want a wall, a mirror, or a desk.
Can I self-host a DAKboard-style display with no cloud?
That is what Perch is. One Node process on your own board, config in a JSON file on your own disk, no login and no external service. It deliberately refuses requests that do not look like they came from your LAN, and it should never be port-forwarded to the internet.
Will it show my Google Calendar?
The clock widget carries a calendar that needs no account at all. For a Google Calendar specifically, the honest answer today is that it is a widget somebody needs to write, and a widget is one folder of about forty lines that a coding agent can draft from the docs. If you write it, the registry will list it under your name.