head to head · open source
frigate vs button-card
frigate has 35,947 GitHub stars, 3,601 forks, 95 open issues and last shipped yesterday. button-card has 2,496 stars, 280 forks, 31 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. frigate leads on adoption by 1,340% (35,947 vs 2,496 stars). frigate is written in TypeScript under MIT; button-card is written in TypeScript under MIT. frigate has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, button-card 11%. frigate was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (home-assistant, home-automation), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| frigate | button-card | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.6K | ⑂ 280 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick frigate if
- You weight community size — 36K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick button-card if
- You want the button-card feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and button-card fits your workflow better
About frigate
Frigate NVR is a complete and local network video recorder built for Home Assistant, with AI object detection. It uses OpenCV and Tensorflow to run realtime object detection locally on IP cameras, so video analysis happens on your own hardware instead of a vendor cloud. Project lives in the Home Assistant home automation ecosystem, with tight integration through a custom component, and it talks over MQTT so other systems can consume its events. Written mainly in TypeScript, MIT licensed, 8 years old, 35,896 stars and 3,596 forks on GitHub.
read the full frigate overview →
About button-card
button card is a custom Lovelace card for Home Assistant. It presents entities as configurable buttons and supports many options for appearance, actions, and state display. It lives in the Home Assistant ecosystem, specifically the Lovelace UI, and is distributed as a community custom card with stable and development releases.
read the full button-card overview →
More in Productivity & Utilities
Related comparisons
More Automation projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Automation field.
Frequently asked questions
Is frigate or button-card more popular?
frigate has 35,947 GitHub stars and button-card has 2,496. frigate has the larger community by that measure.
Are frigate and button-card free?
Both are open source. frigate is licensed under MIT and button-card under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between frigate and button-card?
frigate is written in TypeScript and button-card in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, frigate or button-card?
Choose frigate if you want the larger community (35,947 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose button-card if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.