CrowsEye vs ViewPane
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
CrowsEye
Monitor your home security cameras with AI-powered object detection. Receive real-time alerts, stream live footage, and review recorded events from your iOS devices. Manage multiple NVR installations and track server health.
- AI-powered object detection
- Real-time push notifications
- Live camera streaming
- Recording playback
- Multi-server support
- System monitoring
Read full descriptionHide full description
CrowsEye is a native iOS client for Frigate NVR, the popular open-source network video recorder with AI-powered object detection. Monitor your security cameras, review recordings, and stay on top of your home surveillance with real-time push notifications, all from your iPhone or iPad. ** Push Notifications (Beta) Receive instant alerts when Frigate detects events on your cameras. Configure notifications per camera with granular controls, temporarily suspend alerts when you expect activity, and stay informed even when the app is closed. Requires Frigate 0.15 or later. Live Camera Viewing Stream live footage from all your Frigate cameras with smooth MJPEG playback. The adaptive grid layout automatically adjusts for standard and ultra-wide camera formats, giving you the best view of your property at a glance. Real-time activity indicators show motion and object detection as it happens. Picture-in-Picture support lets you keep watching while using other apps. Recording Playback Browse and play back recorded footage with an intuitive calendar interface. Easily navigate through hours of recordings and find exactly what you're looking for. Pinch to zoom for detailed inspection of any moment. Review & Detection Events Stay on top of alerts and detections with the dedicated Review page. Browse AI-detected events including people, vehicles, animals, and more. Frigate's powerful detection capabilities are at your fingertips, helping you quickly find important moments without scrubbing through hours of footage. Multi-Server Support Manage multiple Frigate installations from a single app. Quickly switch between home, office, or client locations with saved credentials and auto-login support. Perfect for users managing multiple properties or security professionals. Smart Network Switching Automatically detects when you are on your home network and uses your internal server URL for faster local access, then seamlessly switches to your external URL when you are away from home. No manual configuration needed. System Monitoring Keep tabs on your Frigate server health with real-time metrics including: - Detector inference speed and performance - CPU and GPU utilization - Storage usage across all drives - Per-camera recording storage breakdown - Process monitoring Key Features - Push notifications for real-time event alerts (Beta) - Native iOS experience optimized for iPhone and iPad - Multi-server management with quick switching and auto-login - Automatic network switching between internal and external URLs - Cloudflare Zero Trust support (browser login and service tokens) - Picture-in-Picture for live camera streams - Live motion and detection activity indicators - PTZ controls: Pan, tilt and zoom now appear as a compact horizontal strip on the live view for any camera that supports it - Secure connection to your self-hosted Frigate server - Support for self-signed SSL certificates - Pan and view support for 360 degree security cameras with dewarping and mount position selection. - Save snapshots and clips directly to your Photos library Requirements - Frigate NVR server (v0.14 or later, v0.15+ for push notifications) - Network access to your Frigate instance CrowsEye is designed for users who run their own Frigate NVR installation and want a dedicated, native mobile experience for monitoring their cameras on the go.
ViewPane
Read full descriptionHide full description
ViewPane is the companion app for Frigate NVR — the open-source, self-hosted network video recorder trusted by thousands of self-hosting enthusiasts. Your cameras. Your network. Your phone. NATIVE HEVC LIVE VIEW Tap any camera for a fullscreen live view played as real video with hardware H.265/HEVC decode — full resolution, full frame rate, no server re-encoding. Pinch to zoom, pan while zoomed, rotate for landscape. ALL YOUR CAMERAS IN ONE GRID A clean 2- or 3-column grid with thumbnails you set yourself — capture the exact frame you want for each camera. Live Wall (Pro) turns the grid into an auto-updating multi-camera view with Auto, Large, Medium, or Small tiles, and a long-press pins any camera as the big tile. BROWSE AI-DETECTED EVENTS Scroll events with thumbnails, confidence scores, and zone labels. Filter by camera, detection type (person, car, dog, cat), or time range (Pro). Tap any event for the snapshot and recorded clip. PLAY, SAVE, AND SHARE CLIPS (PRO) Event clips and continuous recordings download to your phone, play smoothly mobile-optimized, and hand off to the system share sheet — save to your files or photos via the share sheet, or send to anyone. GET NOTIFIED (PRO) Motion alerts through your own self-hosted relay container, driven by your MQTT broker. Per-camera schedules, tap an alert to jump to the live view and snooze that camera. No cloud middleman — the relay runs on your hardware. Delivery is best-effort: alerts ride your network and Apple's push service, so treat them as a convenience, not a guarantee. WORKS EVERYWHERE Connect over your local network at home or remotely through Tailscale or a reverse proxy — ViewPane automatically picks the right URL. Sign in with Frigate's own built-in login (0.16+), Basic Auth, or a Bearer Token. The app refuses to send credentials over unsafe public HTTP. PRIVACY FIRST No analytics, no tracking, no accounts, no cloud. Server credentials live in your device's secure keychain. Camera footage flows directly between your phone and your server — we never see it. The only optional external service is push delivery (an anonymous device token; never video or credentials). BUILT FOR FRIGATE USERS Works with Frigate 0.14 or newer (tested on 0.16 and 0.17), community or Frigate+. Multi-server support (Pro). Demo mode — tour the full app with sample data before touching your config. Built by someone who runs 10 cameras on Frigate at home. ViewPane is a viewer for cameras you own and operate. It is not a security or alarm system, does not monitor anything on your behalf, and is not a substitute for a monitored service. Free tier: one server, the camera grid, fullscreen native-HEVC live view with pinch-zoom and landscape, the last 20 events, LAN + Tailscale access, and demo mode. ViewPane Pro ($9.99/year — under a dollar a month) adds push notifications, full event history with filters, clip playback and saving, unlimited servers, and Live Wall. ViewPane is not affiliated with the Frigate NVR project. Privacy Policy: https://viewpane.app/privacy · Terms of Use (EULA): https://viewpane.app/terms
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: ViewPane at Free against CrowsEye's $2.99. ViewPane also leads on update cadence (daily vs fortnightly) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). CrowsEye's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
ViewPane is free to download; CrowsEye costs $2.99 up front. ViewPane sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $9.99 per year. CrowsEye asks for nothing beyond the download.
CrowsEye ships an update fortnightly, ViewPane daily. The most recent releases landed on October 13, 2026 and September 30, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | CrowsEye | ViewPane |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.6 (10 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 81.8% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 10 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Daily — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 15.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 21 MB | 33 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Bao Tuan Doan | Kenneth Campbell |
In-app purchases
CrowsEye
No in-app purchases
ViewPane
- ViewPane Pro$9.991 Year









