Smart Camera Recording on Unraid with Frigate
Record your IP cameras and run AI object detection locally on your Unraid server with Frigate. Your footage stays on your own storage, and there's no cloud account and no monthly fee.
Frigate is an open-source network video recorder (NVR) built for local AI. It watches your IP camera feeds and uses object detection to find the moments that matter, like a person at the front door, a car in the driveway, or the dog getting into the garden. It doesn't record hours of swaying trees for you to scrub through.
Run it on Unraid and the whole system lives on hardware you already own. Detection runs on your server using an Intel, AMD or Nvidia GPU, an Intel NPU, or a USB Coral. Recordings go to your own storage, and nothing depends on a camera maker's cloud staying online or a subscription staying paid.
Watch: Set Up Frigate on Unraid
Our App of the Month guide covers recording, detection, phone notifications and private remote access.
What You Can Do with Frigate
- Record only what matters: AI detection flags people, cars, dogs and cats, so you review events, not hours of empty footage
- Get alerts on your phone: a push notification when someone comes to the door or a car pulls in
- Set zones: watch the driveway and ignore the street, or alert on the porch but not the sidewalk
- Keep footage as long as you like: set separate retention for continuous recording, alerts and snapshots, all on your own storage
- Play back and export clips: find an event and save it in a couple of clicks
- Connect it to Home Assistant: use camera events to turn on lights, announce visitors or trigger automations
- Check in from anywhere: view live feeds and recordings remotely over Tailscale, without exposing your cameras to the internet
Private Remote Access with Tailscale
Cameras are one of the most common ways home networks get exposed. Opening ports so you can watch your feeds from work is exactly what attackers scan for. Our guide takes a different approach: Frigate stays on your local network, and you reach it from your phone or laptop through Tailscale, using the Tailscale integration built into Unraid's Docker containers.
Tailscale creates an encrypted private network between your own devices. Remote viewing and doorbell notifications work from anywhere, and there are no open ports and no public login page. If you haven't set up Tailscale yet, start with our Tailscale on Unraid guide.
Your cameras. Your footage. Your network.
Why Unraid for Frigate?
An NVR needs to be on all the time, it needs plenty of storage, and it needs somewhere to run AI detection. Unraid covers all three on one box, alongside the rest of your apps.
- Always on: your server runs 24/7, so recording and alerts never stop
- Storage that fits the job: give recordings their own SSD pool, and keep the array for everything else
- Use the hardware you have: pass through an Intel, AMD or Nvidia GPU, an Intel NPU, or a USB Coral for detection
- One-click install: Frigate is available in Community Apps
- Built-in Tailscale: private remote access with no port forwarding
- Pairs with Home Assistant: run both on the same server and let them work together
- No subscriptions: no per-camera fees and no cloud storage plans
Get Started
Open the Apps tab in your Unraid WebGUI, search for "Frigate" and install Frigate for Unraid. Then follow our step-by-step written guide or the video above. It walks through choosing hardware, adding your cameras, setting up detection, zones and retention, and turning on remote access and phone notifications.
Already running Home Assistant? See Home Assistant on Unraid to bring Frigate's events into your automations.
Try before you buy
Not sure if Unraid is right for you? Take Unraid for a test drive for 30 days—no credit card required.
