SHSelfHostIndex

Home Assistant vs Frigate Cards

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?
HO Home Assistant Open-source home automation that puts privacy first VS FR Frigate Cards Advanced camera card for Home Assistant dashboards
FeatureHome AssistantFrigate Cards
CategoryHome AutomationHome Automation
LicenseApache-2.0MIT
LanguagePythonTypeScript
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM1,024 MB64 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, one-clickbare-metal
GitHub stars★ 89,795★ 1,117
First released20132021
ReplacesSmartThings, Google HomeRing app

Why pick each one

Choose Home Assistant if…

  • Huge device support
  • Local control and privacy
  • Very active community
Home Assistant details

Choose Frigate Cards if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Active community (1.1k GitHub stars)
  • Written in TypeScript
Frigate Cards details

Frequently asked questions

Is Home Assistant or Frigate Cards better?

Neither is universally better. Home Assistant has the larger community, while Frigate Cards is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Home Assistant and Frigate Cards free and open-source?

Yes. Home Assistant is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Frigate Cards under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Home Assistant and Frigate Cards with Docker?

Home Assistant: yes. Frigate Cards: check the project docs for container support.

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