Show HN: Fregata – a macOS native port of Frigate NVR

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Fregata - Native NVR for Apple SiliconTo celebrate the initial release of Fregata, all trial license keys will remain valid until October 31, 2026! 🎉<br>Start free trial

Native NVR for Apple Silicon<br>Your cameras.<br>Your Mac. No cloud.<br>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.<br>Start 30-day free trial Buy for $10<br>30-day free trial · One-time payment · No subscription · Works offline

Fregata File Edit View Window Help<br>100% Mon 2:14 PM<br>Frigate go2rtc nginx MQTT<br>CPU 2.7%<br>RAM 1.3G

Cameras11 / 12 active<br>Detector1.6 ms/frame

Uptime19d 13h 47m<br>Disk1.5T / 73.8T

Open Frigate Web UI⌘O

Start Frigate<br>Stop Frigate<br>Restart Frigate⌘R

Settings›

About Fregata…<br>Quit Fregata⌘Q

localhost:8971<br>Live Review Export

Default 11 / 12 live · 1.6 ms/frame<br>REC<br>Front Porch<br>2160p · 30fps<br>person · 0.94

REC<br>Driveway<br>1440p · 20fps<br>car · 0.93

REC<br>Backyard<br>1080p · 15fps

REC<br>Garage<br>1080p · 15fps<br>car · 0.97

REC<br>Side Gate<br>1080p · 15fps

Doorbell<br>offline · 4 min

At a glance<br>01<br>Fully local<br>Video, object detection, recordings - none of it leaves your Mac. No Fregata account exists to hand your data to.

02<br>Apple Silicon native<br>Detection runs on the Neural Engine via CoreML. Video Decode and encode run on the dedicated Media Engine via VideoToolbox.

03<br>Pay once, own it<br>$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.

Connect cameras<br>Any RTSP-capable camera - Reolink, Amcrest, Hikvision, Unifi, Dahua. Fregata also speaks WebRTC and MSE for low-latency live view.<br>rtsp://192.168.1.42:554/stream<br>connected · 2160p · 30fps<br>connected · 1440p · 20fps<br>connected · 1080p · 15fps

Configure once<br>Point Fregata at a recordings folder. Define zones and detection rules in YAML, or define them in the web UI.<br>cameras:<br>front_yard:<br>detect:<br>objects: [person, car, dog]<br>zones:<br>walkway:<br>coordinates: 0,420,640,...<br>objects: [person]<br>record:<br>retain: { days: 14 }

Watch from anywhere<br>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.<br>Local LAN192.168.X.X:8971<br>Browser - Externalfregata.yourdomain.com<br>Home Assistantvia Frigate HACS

Apple Neural Engine - CoreML<br>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.<br>~1ms<br>per-frame detection latency · M4 · YOLOv9-tiny 320

Bundled model: YOLOv9-tiny, 320×320. Drop in your own ONNX model anytime - including full support for Frigate+ models.

Media Engine - VideoToolbox<br>Hardware accelerated H.264 and HEVC decode and encode on the dedicated media engine, no low-resolution detection sub-streams required. Your CPU stays free for other apps.<br>4K@15fps ·<br>per camera, M4, decode + detect pipeline

Auto-detected at first launch - no codec configuration, no accelerator planning, no external GPU.

Community Sourced Benchmarks

CPU cluster<br>P-cores + E-cores. Mostly idle while Fregata runs.

Neural Engine<br>Object detection, every frame. CoreML.

GPU<br>Available for the OS and other apps.

Media Engine<br>VideoToolbox H.264/HEVC decode + encode.

Apple Silicon<br>CPU

Neural Engine

GPU

Media Engine

Multi-camera live view<br>Synchronized scrubbing across cameras. WebRTC and MSE for sub-second latency in the browser.

Smart zones & masks<br>Only alert on motion that matters. Pixel-precise polygons, per-object thresholds, ignore-zones.

24/7 recording<br>Retention rules per camera and per object. Continuous, motion-only, or event-only - your choice.

AI Object detection<br>People, vehicles, animals, packages, and more - all on-device, on the Neural Engine.

Home Assistant<br>Full support via the official Frigate HACS integration. MQTT-native. Works out of the box.

WebRTC + MSE<br>Sub-second latency live view in any browser. No Flash, no plugin, no transcoding hop.

RTSP re-streaming<br>One connection per camera, fanned out via go2rtc - fewer streams to your hardware.

Menu bar app<br>Start, stop, status. Fregata settings. The whole thing lives in your menu bar, not your dock.

Runs offline<br>No Fregata account, no cloud. Pull the network cable - it keeps recording.

Open-source core<br>Built on the open-source Frigate project. Inspect the engine, contribute upstream.

localhost:8971

Default 11 / 12 live · 1.6 ms/frame<br>REC<br>Front Porch<br>2160p · 30fps<br>person · 0.94

REC<br>Driveway<br>1440p · 20fps<br>car · 0.93

REC<br>Backyard<br>1080p · 15fps

REC<br>Garage<br>1080p · 15fps<br>car · 0.97

REC<br>Side Gate<br>1080p · 15fps

Doorbell<br>offline · 4 min

localhost:8971/#driveway

Review Recordings Today All cameras · 4<br>Driveway · 2:14:08 PM car · 0.87 00:42 / 03:24 1×

2:002:152:302:453:00<br>Front Porch<br>Driveway<br>Backyard<br>Garage

Alert Detection...

fregata engine frigate detection 15fps apple

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