The open-source NVR you actually own.
OpenNVR is a free, AGPLv3 network video recorder for IP cameras. The recording, the storage, the analytics, and the audit log all run on hardware you control — no per-camera licence fees, no vendor cloud, and every line of code is there to read.
Why open source matters for surveillance specifically
Cameras are the most-installed sensor on earth, and most of them run closed firmware wired to a vendor's cloud. That architecture has a track record: the Mirai botnet conscripted hundreds of thousands of cameras in 2016, and in 2021 a single credential compromise at Verkada exposed live feeds from around 150,000 cameras across hospitals, schools, and factories. When the vendor holds the keys, the vendor's breach is your breach.
Open source flips that. You can audit exactly what the software does, run it with no internet route out, patch it on your own schedule, and prove to a regulator what it did and didn't do. For a system whose entire job is watching sensitive spaces, "trust us, it's secure" isn't good enough — you need to be able to check.
What you get with OpenNVR
- ✓ No fees, ever. AGPLv3. No per-camera or per-seat licensing, no subscription, no cloud bill.
- ✓ Self-hosted and offline-first. Runs on commodity hardware from a Raspberry Pi 5 to a rack server. Cloud connectivity is off by default and audited when you turn it on.
- ✓ Auditable by design. Every inference carries a correlation ID, model weights are fingerprinted with sha256, and it all lands in an append-only log you can show an auditor.
- ✓ Works with cameras you already have. Any ONVIF or RTSP camera. No proprietary hardware to buy.
- ✓ An open AI platform on top. Add any model as a first-class detector through a published adapter contract — and you can even talk to your cameras.
Backed by published research
OpenNVR's architecture isn't ad-hoc — it's the reference implementation of a peer-reviewed offline-first security architecture (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.17261761) that enumerates the systemic weaknesses in IP-camera deployments and the structural safeguards against each.
How it compares
Evaluating against Frigate, ZoneMinder, Verkada, Shinobi, or Viseron? See the honest, side-by-side breakdown on the alternatives page — what each does well and where OpenNVR is the better fit.