Frigate Cards vs ThingsBoard
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?
Frigate Cards
Advanced camera card for Home Assistant dashboards
VS
ThingsBoard
Open-source IoT platform for device management and data
| Feature | Frigate Cards | ThingsBoard |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Home Automation | Home Automation |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | TypeScript | Java |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 2,048 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal | docker, kubernetes, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,117 | ★ 22,200 |
| First released | 2021 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Ring app | AWS IoT, Azure IoT |
Why pick each one
Choose Frigate Cards if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Active community (1.1k GitHub stars)
- Written in TypeScript
Frequently asked questions
Is Frigate Cards or ThingsBoard better?
Neither is universally better. ThingsBoard 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 Frigate Cards and ThingsBoard free and open-source?
Yes. Frigate Cards is licensed under MIT and ThingsBoard under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Frigate Cards and ThingsBoard with Docker?
Frigate Cards: check the project docs for container support. ThingsBoard: yes.