Replace / Nest
Best free Nest alternatives (open source, self-hosted) 2026
The best open-source alternative to Nest is Frigate, self-hosted on Railway. Cameras you run locally. Frigate is MIT — Ring and Nest without the footage in someone else's building.
Estimated save $1,200 a year.
Open the stackStart on Railway
How Nest compares
| Nest | Frigate | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Hosted subscription | Open-source or fair-code license; you pay the host |
| Hosting | Vendor cloud | Self-hosted on Railway or any VPS |
| Rough monthly cost | Public list price not verified this run | Hosting only — no SaaS seat meter in this repo |
- Frigate
MIT local NVR with realtime object detection
FAQ
- What is the best free open-source Nest alternative?
- The best open-source alternative to Nest is Frigate, self-hosted on Railway. Cameras you run locally. Frigate is MIT — Ring and Nest without the footage in someone else's building.
- Is it free?
- The Frigate licenses are open source or fair-code. You still pay hosting (Railway or any VPS) and any APIs the stack calls. There is no Nest seat or task bill on this path.
- Can I migrate from Nest?
- Yes. Start with the workflows or data you actually use, then cut over. The Frigate stack page has the agent prompt and the cost table; most teams rebuild the slice that matters and leave old Nest links until they expire.
- How do I deploy it?
- Open the Frigate stack, copy the agent prompt, and deploy on Railway (one service, PORT, and a volume when the app needs disk). Placeholder: Frigate wants cameras, a large recordings volume, and usually a Coral or GPU. A home NUC or a GPU host is the honest path; Railway is rarely enough. No one-click template in this repo yet — Start on Railway. Photo libraries stay on /stacks/immich-photos.
- What does this replace?
- Ring / Nest. The published small-team estimate on this stack is $1,200 a year.
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