Fregata is a private, local-first network video recorder for macOS built on the fantastic open source Frigate NVR. Object detection on the Apple Neural Engine. Hardware accelerated decode and encode through VideoToolbox. One app - drag to Applications, done.
30-day free trial · One-time payment · No subscription · Works offline
Video, object detection, recordings - none of it leaves your Mac. No Fregata account exists to hand your data to.
Detection runs on the Neural Engine via CoreML. Video Decode and encode run on the dedicated Media Engine via VideoToolbox.
$10 one-time. A full year of updates that never stop working even if your license expires. No subscription, no price per camera, no features hidden behind paywalls.
Any RTSP-capable camera - Reolink, Amcrest, Hikvision, Unifi, Dahua. Fregata also speaks WebRTC and MSE for low-latency live view.
Point Fregata at a recordings folder. Define zones and detection rules in YAML, or define them in the web UI.
cameras: front_yard: detect: objects: [person, car, dog] zones: walkway: coordinates: 0,420,640,... objects: [person] record: retain: { days: 14 }
Open the menu bar icon. Click Open Web UI, or hit localhost:8971 from any device. Multi-camera scrubbing, event timeline, motion masks - the works.
Object detection runs on the Apple Neural Engine via a custom CoreML detector written in Rust - not your CPU, not your GPU. Lower latency, lower power, cooler fans.
Bundled model: YOLOv9-tiny, 320×320. Drop in your own ONNX model anytime - including full support for Frigate+ models.
Hardware accelerated H.264 and HEVC decode and encode on the dedicated media engine — not your CPU, not your GPU. Bandwidth-adaptive transcoding for weak LTE, 5G, or VPN connections, all on the Media Engine at zero CPU cost.
Auto-detected at first launch - no codec configuration, no accelerator planning, no external GPU.
Synchronized scrubbing across cameras. WebRTC and MSE for sub-second latency in the browser.
Only alert on motion that matters. Pixel-precise polygons, per-object thresholds, ignore-zones.
Retention rules per camera and per object. Continuous, motion-only, or event-only - your choice.
People, vehicles, animals, packages, and more - all on-device, on the Neural Engine.
Full support via the official Frigate HACS integration. MQTT-native. Works out of the box.
Sub-second latency live view in any browser. No Flash, no plugin, no transcoding hop.
Fregata-exclusive. VideoToolbox ABR for recordings and live view — zero CPU. Auto quality for weak LTE, 5G, or VPN.
Start, stop, status. Fregata settings. Lives in your menu bar by default — show an optional Dock icon too, if you'd rather.
No Fregata account, no cloud. Pull the network cable - it keeps recording.
Built on the open-source Frigate project. Inspect the engine, contribute upstream.
Driveway · 2:14:08 PM car · 0.87 Front Porch 2:14:08 PM person · 0.94If you’re on a Mac, this is what the landscape looks like. We’ve tried to be fair - corrections welcome on GitHub.
Fregata| Fregata | Frigate Docker | Scrypted | Blue Iris | Synology | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Native macOS app | ✓ Signed .app | ✗ Docker only | ✓ Desktop app / Homebrew | ✗ Windows only | ✗ Runs on NAS |
| Apple Neural Engine (CoreML) | ✓ Built-in | ✗ Blocked by Docker VM | — Via CoreML plugin | ✗ | ✗ |
| VideoToolbox decode/encode | ✓ Auto-detected | ✗ Blocked by Docker VM | — Via ffmpeg | ✗ | ✗ |
| Adaptive transcoding (recordings + live) | ✓ VideoToolbox hardware transcoding, zero CPU; lowers quality to fit bandwidth | ✗ None | — CPU transcoding via paid NVR plugin; manual quality | — CPU transcoding; manual quality | — NAS CPU/GPU transcoding; manual quality |
| No detection sub-streams required | ✓ Full-res detection | ✗ Sub-stream needed | ✗ Sub-stream needed | ✗ Sub-stream needed | ✗ Sub-stream needed |
| Custom Trained AI Models | ✓ (Frigate+) | ✓ (Frigate+) | — Via ONNX plugin | ✗ | ✗ |
| RTSP camera support | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Local-only / no cloud required | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Open-source core | ✓ Frigate upstream (MIT) | ✓ MIT | — Core only; NVR plugin paid & proprietary | ✗ Proprietary | ✗ Proprietary |
| Home Assistant integration | ✓ Frigate HACS | ✓ Frigate HACS | ✓ Plugin | ✓ via MQTT | ✗ Community via Scrypted |
| HomeKit Live View | ✓ Via go2rtc HAP | ✓ Via go2rtc HAP | ✓ +HKSV | ✗ | ✗ |
| Pricing | $10 one-time | Free | $10 per cam per year NVR subscription | $39.95–99.95 + $44.95/yr for updates | 2 cameras free, then ~$50–60 / camera |
| Best for | Mac users who want Frigate with extreme performance and without Docker | Linux users with Coral or NVIDIA hardware | HomeKit-first households unifying many brands | Windows users with large deployments | Existing Synology NAS owners |
If you’re already happy on Frigate, Scrypted, Blue Iris, or Synology - keep what works. Fregata exists for Mac owners who want the Frigate engine, hardware accelerated by Apple Silicon and packaged the way macOS apps should be packaged.
Pay once. All updates released within 12 months of purchase never stop working, yours forever.
.appSecure checkout
Frigate is the open-source, Docker-based NVR project. Fregata is a commercial native macOS port of Frigate, repackaged as a signed, notarized .app that runs natively on Apple Silicon with extreme performance - no Docker, no VMs, no terminal setup. (New here? See how to run Frigate on a Mac.)
Fregata adds Apple Neural Engine detection, VideoToolbox hardware accelerated video decode/encode, Fregata-exclusive bandwidth-adaptive HLS transcoding for recordings and live view, and hundreds of other performance optimizations for Apple Silicon (see docs.fregata.app for more). The Frigate Python core is open source; the macOS runtime port, Apple Silicon optimizations, and the Fregata brand are proprietary.
You’re paying for the performance and ease of use of the macOS port, the bundle, the Apple Silicon work - a custom CoreML detector written in Rust, VideoToolbox integration for hardware accelerated video decoding and encoding, bandwidth-adaptive HLS transcoding for recordings and live view (hardware-accelerated on the Media Engine — zero CPU; not in Frigate — lets you watch your cameras on LTE and 5G connections that can’t carry a high-bitrate stream), a native process supervisor, hardware accelerated frame crop and zoom for object detection - and ongoing maintenance and updates.
If you’d rather run Docker, Frigate is free and excellent - go to frigate.video.
An Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later) running macOS 13 (Ventura) or newer. Fregata does not support Intel Macs - the whole point of the port is leveraging the Apple Neural Engine and the hardware accelerated video decoding/encoding provided by Apple Silicon.
Anything that speaks RTSP - that’s almost every IP camera on the market today, including Reolink, Amcrest, Hikvision, Dahua, and Unifi Protect. The bundled go2rtc proxy also handles WebRTC, ONVIF, RTMP, and HLS, plus cloud-API cameras directly: Ring, Google Nest, Wyze, Tapo / TP-Link, Tuya, and HomeKit-paired cameras all work without RTSP. The full source-type list is on go2rtc’s README.
Yes. Fregata performs a license check periodically, but can operate without any contact with our license servers once the license is validated on startup. All detection, recording, and playback happens entirely on your Mac.
License validation pings only. We never see your video, your camera URLs, or your detection events. There is no Fregata cloud account.
Yes, Fregata uses Frigate as its core and is fully compatible with Frigate+ and Frigate+ custom trained models. For more information about Frigate+, see https://frigate.video/plus/
No. Due to the performance of Apple Silicon, a Mac can easily decode full-resolution streams from your cameras and run object detection on the full-resolution frames allowing object detection to run with greater accuracy and capture small or distant objects. In our testing, Fregata can easily handle object detection on 8x (or more) 4K cameras using only a base M4 Mac Mini.
Yes. Drop any compatible ONNX model into your config directory and point Fregata at it. The bundled default is YOLOv9-tiny at 320×320, optimized for the Neural Engine. Fregata also works with Frigate+ models natively.
Yes. A license activates on one Mac at a time, and you can transfer it between Macs up to 3 times per 30 days from your license page - no support ticket required. For larger or fleet deployments, get in touch.
No. App Store sandboxing forbids spawning child processes like we need to - Fregata needs to run ffmpeg, nginx, and go2rtc as subprocesses to do its job. We also need to manage the RAM disk and shared memory in a way App Store apps cannot. Direct DMG distribution with Apple notarization is the right model for software like this.
Your installed version keeps working forever. You stop receiving new updates unless you renew for another year of updates (also $10) - but nothing breaks, no features are remotely disabled, and your existing recordings remain fully accessible.
Community discussion, feature requests, support, and bug reports happen on GitHub. You can also get private support via email to share logs or your config file - reply to your license email for direct, private support. We will read and reply to every single one.
Yes — this is a Fregata-exclusive feature not available in upstream Frigate. A 4K or high-bitrate stream is completely unwatchable on weak LTE or 5G; without adaptive transcoding you simply can’t see your cameras from the road when signal is poor. Enable adaptive_transcoding on a camera and Fregata serves its recordings as an HLS adaptive bitrate stream — the player automatically steps between 1080p, 720p, and 360p based on your measured connection speed, with no buffering or manual quality selection.
Adding live: true does the same for the live view — the stream dropdown shows each quality rung as a selectable option, and the player switches automatically as signal strength changes. All transcoding runs entirely on Apple Silicon’s dedicated Media Engine via VideoToolbox — zero CPU. Clients on your local network bypass the ladder entirely and receive the full-resolution source stream. See the adaptive transcoding docs for configuration details including VPN and Tailscale setup.
Yes. Fregata is fully compatible with the official Frigate Home Assistant integration. Install it from HACS, point it at your Mac’s IP, done.
Frigate is the open-source NVR project by Frigate, Inc. that this software is built on. Frigate relies on a Docker-based system and has set the standard for local, AI-powered camera recording.
Fregata is a native macOS port of Frigate and the docker runtime that manages the external process supervisor, RAM disk, shared memory system and much more. All redesigned and optimized to run as a self-contained .app bundle and unlock the raw power of Apple Silicon - no Docker, no Virtual Machines, no terminal required.
Fregata is the scientific genus that frigatebirds belong to. They have the highest wing-to-body weight ratio of any bird, soar for weeks without landing, always watching for prey.
Frigate® and the Frigate NVR brand are trademarks of Frigate, Inc. Fregata is an independent derivative - not affiliated with or endorsed by Frigate, Inc.
macOS 13 or later · Apple Silicon · Signed by Apple