SHSelfHostIndex

DVR-Scan vs Frigate Mobile Companion

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted video surveillance options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
DV DVR-Scan Detect and extract motion events from video footage VS FR Frigate Mobile Companion Network video recorder front-end for review and clips
FeatureDVR-ScanFrigate Mobile Companion
CategoryVideo SurveillanceVideo Surveillance
LicenseBSD-2-ClauseApache-2.0
LanguagePythonHTML
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM256 MB512 MB
Deploymentbinary, sourcedocker
GitHub stars★ 513★ 5,150
First released20162015
ReplacesBlue Iris motion reviewWowza

Why pick each one

Choose DVR-Scan if…

  • Released under the BSD-2-Clause license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Written in Python
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
DVR-Scan details

Choose Frigate Mobile Companion if…

  • Easy to publish camera feeds
  • Polished interface
Frigate Mobile Companion details

Frequently asked questions

Is DVR-Scan or Frigate Mobile Companion better?

Neither is universally better. Frigate Mobile Companion has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are DVR-Scan and Frigate Mobile Companion free and open-source?

Yes. DVR-Scan is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and Frigate Mobile Companion under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run DVR-Scan and Frigate Mobile Companion with Docker?

DVR-Scan: check the project docs for container support. Frigate Mobile Companion: yes.

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