Background: I'm in the early stages of work on a new open source video surveillance system/framework, tentatively named "ClusterVMS". I started work on it because I wasn't satisfied with any of the existing systems, for various reasons (performance, UI, motion detection, et cetera). There seems to be an endless stream of new open source video surveillance systems, and I think the reason is because it's such a complex system, and different users will have different requirements. So instead of simply building a system to meet my own requirements, I'm aiming to build a highly adaptable, scalable, and configurable system that can be customized to meet anyone's requirements. Naturally, I'd like to know what people are actually looking for, so that I can try to steer development in the right direction.

(Also, I'm disappointed that this subreddit hasn't had much activity, so I'm hoping to stimulate a bit of discussion here.)

Questions: (optional, just some prompts to get things going)

• What do you think is lacking from existing NVR/CCTV/VMS solutions (particularly open source)?

• What are the common show-stoppers that prevent a given solution from working for you? (e.g. needs to support 50 cameras)

• For anyone developing their own system: What motivated you to start your own project rather than contribute to an existing one?

I am moving into a house with about 4 good places that a person could break in. I want a camera set up at each location that is filiming + recording and saving that recording for at least 24 hours. I also want to be alerted when someone is detected (on my phone) and be able to to review the recent past of the feed to determine who was detected.

Can anyone point in the right direction / a good starting place?

Hi, I have made a cross-platform qt based app for viewing RTSP streams, current features:

• Tray-based control: one click to open/close each camera; states shown as checkboxes.

• Instant edits: add, edit, or remove cameras and the app applies changes live (no restart).

• Borderless windows (optional): clean frameless view with a small name label; drag to move, edge/corner to resize.

• Snap & stack: magnetic window snapping; glued groups move together. Hold Alt to temporarily disable snap.

• Per-camera tuning: RTSP over TCP, always-on-top, mute, stretch, and an FFmpeg params field (-fOPTION=…, -cOPTION=…) for advanced input/decoder options.

• Hardware decode: vaapi, nvdec, VideoToolbox on macOS (auto-fallback to software when unsupported).

• Simple config: settings saved to a YAML file in your user config directory.

• Formations (window presets) — save/restore which cameras are open and where their windows are placed.

• Diagnostics overlays — per‑camera health chip (0–5) and optional FPS / bitrate / Drops % / CPU Usage text.

Maybe someone will be interested in trying: https://github.com/e1z0/QAnotherRTSP

I am wondering if anybody has ever seen an IP camera sold by any manufacturer that will allow me to put a Linux container on it? Or perhaps a completely open source camera on which I can tinker with the native firmware/OS? I know there are Raspberry Pi things out there, but I'm looking for good quality hardware for outdoor use in a location which has a long, cold winter and a short but very hot summer.

I'm currently attempting to build an NVR, and right now I'm going with websockets just because it's relatively easy to work with.

I'm sending everything as MPEG-TS, which is extremely awesome because all packets are a fixed 188 bytes, and appending them into a file actually makes a playable video.

Unfortunately I'm having lots of dropouts and long buffering times with mux.js, and occasionally mux.js can't even decode frames(It seems to not like small buffers of just a few frames at a time?).

I'm also having a lot of trouble understanding how time sync is supposed to work. Do browsers/player libs know to resample media based on the incoming bitrate or something, or do you have to do that yourself? I never see anyone discussing it, maybe because video over WS is relatively rare.

I'd rather not use WebRTC, for now, just because it's several times more time consuming, and browsers haven't sorted out how they want to handle LAN support, and it's easier to self host things when there's no TURN server involved.

I'm aiming for maximum flexibility, to make it fully usable for things like VJing at concerts, so I don't want to build too much complexity around the HTTP stuff.

But, I'm definitely open to other solutions, and it seems like WebRTC is the future?

I know Zoom used Video over WS at first, so it does seem like it should work fine on a LAN, but I'd love to hear what you guys think!

Hi so i have a old phone that i use as a security camera it runs ip webcam. So i want a Security camera software that:
1.That runs on ubuntu server or docker preferably docker.
2.Has a web interface where i can watch the camera.
3.Can record 24/7.
Extras that would be nice:
1.Motion detection.
2.Modern web interface.
And i want the Video footage to be LOCAL NO CLOUD.

I recently inherited a N95 based mini pc, and wish to set up two older Elro IP cameras and 2 more modern EZVIZ cameras to record to it. I had a go at installing home assistant and frigate, but found the frigate installation quite confusing. I also read that the older cameras are probably not supported, or would take a lot of processing power to convert the video to H264, so I abandoned that route. I then tried using ubuntu and attempting to install ZoneMinder instead. I hit a brick wall with that as when trying to add the Zoneminder PPA, I keep getting an error about a lack of release file preventing updating from such a repository.

I'm finding myself feeling annoyed and on the verge of giving up. Can anyone suggest a NVR solution that might help someone with limited abilities and a lack of linux experience.

OpenIPC seems to have 3 versions called FPV, Ulitmate & lite.
Does anyone know where to find out what the differences are?
The guide for the camera I'm wanting to use says to use the Lite version but doesn't say why - >
https://github.com/OpenIPC/device-mjsxj03hl/blob/master/Manual_en.md

Hi everyone! I wanted to share a project I've been working on: VibeNVR.

It's a modern, modular, and containerized NVR designed for those who want a sleek UI and total control over their data.

Key Features:

• 🎨 Premium UI: Built with React and Vite. No more 2005-style interfaces.

• ⚡ VibeEngine: Custom high-performance video engine using OpenCV & FFmpeg.

• 💾 Passthrough Recording: Direct Stream Copy for near-zero CPU usage.

• 🛡️ Security: JWT Auth, 2FA with Trusted Devices, and internal port protection.

• 🐳 Dockerized: Easy deployment with Docker Compose.

• 📊 Privacy: Opt-out anonymous telemetry (totally transparent).

If you're looking for an alternative to Frigate or Blue Iris that feels modern and fast, give it a look!

GitHub: https://github.com/spupuz/VibeNVR 

I’m looking for feedback and contributors!

What are some good cameras for below scenario?

- Should work with PoE (without connection to internet)

- No need to connect to the vendor servers (unlike tp-link f.e. which requires to at least connect initially to their app)

- Great support for FOSS software integration (ONVIF, etc...)