Video surveillance software & cameras, tested on a real bench
Surveilbench compares self-hosted VMS/NVR software and consumer camera ecosystems against criteria we publish and physical hardware we actually own — not marketing claims.
Software (VMS/NVR)
| Solution | Vendor | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Noviscan Self-hosted video surveillance suite with facial recognition, signed licensing, encrypted media caches at rest, and a directory-only relay for remote access (no vendor cloud in the data path). | Secufor | Tested on our bench |
| Frigate NVR Open-source NVR with real-time AI object detection, tight Home Assistant integration. Not yet benchmarked on our test bench. | Open source (Blake Blackshear) | Not yet benchmarked |
| Blue Iris Long-standing commercial Windows VMS, wide camera compatibility. Not yet benchmarked on our test bench. | Blue Iris Software | Not yet benchmarked |
| ZoneMinder Long-running open-source VMS project, self-hosted, broad protocol support. Not yet benchmarked on our test bench. | Open source | Not yet benchmarked |
Read our testing methodology to see exactly how we evaluate each product, and why some entries above are still marked "not yet benchmarked" — we don't publish a verdict until we've actually run it.