head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs frigate
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars, 1,999 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. frigate has 37,160 stars, 3,782 forks, 95 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 10% (40,882 vs 37,160 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; frigate is written in Python under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, frigate 10%. frigate was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Lightpanda | frigate | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 37K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 3.8K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 41K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Zig
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick frigate if
- You want the frigate feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and frigate fits your workflow better
About Lightpanda
Lightpanda Browser The headless browser built from scratch for AI agents and automation. Not a Chromium fork. Not a WebKit patch. A new browser, written in Zig.   Benchmarks Requesting 933 real web pages over the network on a AWS EC2 m5.large instance. See benchmark details. Quick start Install Package Managers Latest nightly from Homebrew: Latest nightly from Arch Linux User Repository: Download from the nightly builds You can download the last binary from the nightly builds for Linux and MacOS for both x86 64 and aarch64. For Linux Verify the binary before running anything: Linux aarch64 is also available…
read the full Lightpanda overview →
About frigate
Frigate NVR™ Realtime Object Detection for IP Cameras \[English\] 简体中文 A complete and local NVR designed for Home Assistant with AI object detection. Uses OpenCV and Tensorflow to perform realtime object detection locally for IP cameras. Use of a GPU or AI accelerator is highly recommended. AI accelerators will outperform even the best CPUs with very little overhead. See Frigate's supported object detectors. Tight integration with Home Assistant via a custom component Designed to minimize resource use and maximize performance by only looking for objects when and where it is necessary Leverages multiprocessing…
read the full frigate overview →
More in Data & Analytics
Related comparisons
More Data Extraction & Web Scraping projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Extraction & Web Scraping field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or frigate more popular?
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars and frigate has 37,160. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and frigate free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and frigate under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and frigate?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and frigate in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Lightpanda or frigate?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (40,882 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose frigate if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.