Frigate

Open-source NVR that runs AI object detection locally on your security camera feeds.

Freemium· Free and open-source; Frigate+ custom-model subscription is paidVideoCustom object detection (Coral/YOLO/Frigate+ models)

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Best for

Pick Frigate if you want a privacy-respecting, AI-driven NVR that plugs into Home Assistant and runs entirely on your own hardware.

Skip if

Skip it if you want a plug-and-play cloud cam app or you don't have the patience for Docker, RTSP and detector tuning.

Frigate is a self-hosted Network Video Recorder built around real-time AI object detection. Instead of streaming footage to a cloud service, it ingests RTSP feeds from your existing cameras and runs inference on local hardware, classifying people, vehicles, animals and other objects with zone-based tracking. With a Coral TPU or supported GPU it can sustain 100+ detections per second, which cuts the false-positive flood you get from motion-only NVRs.

It's aimed at home automation tinkerers and privacy-minded homelabbers, especially the Home Assistant crowd, where it's the de-facto AI camera backend. The core software is free and open source under the MIT license; the optional Frigate+ subscription adds custom models trained on your own labelled clips for better accuracy on edge cases. There's no SaaS lock-in and no per-camera fee, but you bring the hardware: a decent CPU, an AI accelerator, and storage.

Integrations include native Home Assistant entities, MQTT events for NodeRed/OpenHAB, a built-in web UI, and an HTTP/WebSocket API for stream and event access. The trade-off is operational: you'll spend a weekend on Docker, go2rtc, camera substreams and detector tuning before it sings.

Editor's take

Frigate is the clear winner for self-hosted AI camera surveillance and the reason a lot of people buy a Coral USB stick in the first place. It rewards effort: budget a weekend for setup, but you'll never pay a Ring/Nest subscription again. Frigate+ is worth it once you hit the limits of the stock models.

— The AI Tool Bible editorial team