Sentinel VMS is free.

Yes. Unlimited cameras, full recording, live view, playback, on-device AI detection, remote access, and the iPhone and iPad app, all free, with no subscriptions and nothing per camera. You create a free account once to download the app (so we can send you updates), but the app itself runs without signing in and even works completely offline. There's nothing to buy.

As many as you want. There's no per-camera charge and no camera limit, connect every camera you have. Everything runs on your own Mac, so your only practical limits are your hardware and disk space.

Yes. Watching live and playing back from anywhere, on cellular or any network, through a secure tunnel with no port-forwarding, is included at no cost, covering all of your cameras. It used to be a paid add-on; now it's free like everything else.

AI is bring-your-own-key, with nothing billed by us. Paste your own Anthropic API key in the app and Sentinel turns person alerts into Ring-style summaries like “a person in a red shirt carrying a bag, walking toward the door,” powered by Claude Haiku vision, plus threat reads, plain-English search, and a daily digest. The key stays on your Mac, calls go straight to Anthropic on your account (typically pennies per alert, no usage caps from us), and every other detection type runs on-device at no cost.

No. Video, recordings, and on-device AI all stay on your own machine. The only outbound calls happen if you enable them: Remote Access streams to your own phone through a secure tunnel, and AI descriptions send a single downscaled frame straight to Anthropic on your own API key to generate a one-line summary. Otherwise Sentinel can run entirely offline.

You create a free account once to download the app (no card required) so we can send you updates. After that, the app runs without signing in, even offline. There's no billing side, there's nothing to pay for.

Yes, and thank you, Sentinel is free and stays free, but optional donations help fund new features and broader camera support. You can donate any amount here (secure checkout by Stripe), or use the Donate link inside the app. Suggestions and feedback are just as valuable: tell us what you'd like to see at [email protected].

Go for it, there's no per-camera or per-site cost. If you're rolling Sentinel out across many customer sites and want a hand, reach out at [email protected].