Frigate vs Zigbee2MQTT
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted home automation options
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare Frigate with
choose an app… Home Assistant ntfy Homebridge Tasmota ThingsBoard WLED EMQX Frigate NVR Companion go2rtc ESPHome Mosquitto HACS Home Assistant Operating System evcc Scrypted Mushroom Piper Bubble Card OpenMQTTGateway Domoticz Companion DZVents Hyperion Domoticz Home Assistant Companion ESPEasy Sonoff DIY Tools Gladys Assistant Rhasspy Mozilla WebThings Gateway openWakeWord Button Card Awtrix Light OpenBeken Home Assistant Supervisor SmartApp Bridge deCONZ ApexCharts Card OpenRemote diyHue card-mod Mini Media Player TinyTuya Server Home Assistant Floorplan HA-Bridge ESPresense Govee2MQTT ioBroker OpenEnergyMonitor Emoncms HASS.Agent Wyoming Satellite Z-Wave JS UI OwnTracks Recorder LocalTuya openHAB Frigate Cards Python Matter Server OpenHASP Tasmoadmin AppDaemon Ring-MQTT EMHASS Domoticz Plugin Hub Zigbee2MQTT Frontend OpenSprinkler Grott Growatt Monitor Zigbee2MQTT Assistant SIP Irrigation Control Jeedom Node-RED Dashboard 2.0 OpenHAB Cloud OpenVoiceOS SmartIR Theengs Gateway Zwave-JS Server SOLECTRUS SmartHomeNG Victron Venus OS Bridge Dahua2MQTT Streamline Smart Home Dashboards Calaos ESPHome Web Tools Habapp FHEM LHA Onloc Find My Device
Compare Zigbee2MQTT with
choose an app… Home Assistant ntfy Homebridge Tasmota ThingsBoard WLED EMQX Frigate NVR Companion go2rtc ESPHome Mosquitto HACS Home Assistant Operating System evcc Scrypted Mushroom Piper Bubble Card OpenMQTTGateway Domoticz Companion DZVents Hyperion Domoticz Home Assistant Companion ESPEasy Sonoff DIY Tools Gladys Assistant Rhasspy Mozilla WebThings Gateway openWakeWord Button Card Awtrix Light OpenBeken Home Assistant Supervisor SmartApp Bridge deCONZ ApexCharts Card OpenRemote diyHue card-mod Mini Media Player TinyTuya Server Home Assistant Floorplan HA-Bridge ESPresense Govee2MQTT ioBroker OpenEnergyMonitor Emoncms HASS.Agent Wyoming Satellite Z-Wave JS UI OwnTracks Recorder LocalTuya openHAB Frigate Cards Python Matter Server OpenHASP Tasmoadmin AppDaemon Ring-MQTT EMHASS Domoticz Plugin Hub Zigbee2MQTT Frontend OpenSprinkler Grott Growatt Monitor Zigbee2MQTT Assistant SIP Irrigation Control Jeedom Node-RED Dashboard 2.0 OpenHAB Cloud OpenVoiceOS SmartIR Theengs Gateway Zwave-JS Server SOLECTRUS SmartHomeNG Victron Venus OS Bridge Dahua2MQTT Streamline Smart Home Dashboards Calaos ESPHome Web Tools Habapp FHEM LHA Onloc Find My Device
Feature Frigate Zigbee2MQTT Category Home Automation Home Automation License MIT GPL-3.0 Language TypeScript TypeScript Setup difficulty Hard Medium Min. RAM 2,048 MB 256 MB Deployment docker docker, bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 34,903 ★ 15,477 First released 2020 2018 Replaces Google Home SmartThings
Why pick each one
Choose Frigate if… Smart local NVR Great with Home Assistant Privacy-friendly Frigate details Choose Zigbee2MQTT if… Frees devices from vendor hubs Wide device support Local control Zigbee2MQTT details
Frequently asked questions Is Frigate or Zigbee2MQTT better? Neither is universally better. Frigate has the larger community, while Zigbee2MQTT is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Frigate and Zigbee2MQTT free and open-source? Yes. Frigate is licensed under MIT and Zigbee2MQTT under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Frigate and Zigbee2MQTT with Docker? Frigate: yes. Zigbee2MQTT: yes.