ZoneMinder
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ZoneMinder is a free video camera security application suite, designed for low cost DIY video security including commercial or home CCTV, theft prevention and child or family member monitoring including nanny cam applications.
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POX added ZoneMinder as alternative to SpyCam
POX added ZoneMinder as alternative to Privastead- K0RR added ZoneMinder as alternative to OnvifDeviceManager
ZoneMinder information
Developed by
UnknownLicensing
Open Source (GPL-2.0) and Free product.Written in
Rating
Average rating of 1.6Alternatives
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Video & MoviesGitHub repository
- 5,420 Stars
- 1,244 Forks
- 174 Open Issues
- Updated Apr 14, 2025
Comments and Reviews
Far too complicated to set up. I gave up even trying to start setting it up by reading through their Wiki. The guides there are outdated, confusingly written and jump from one topic to another without explaining it in depth enough for beginners of this software to set up. Sadly seems like the only good option left when it comes to free surveillance software tho and yet I can't use it...
I made an account just so I could tell people how much zoneminder sucks. It's complicated to set up, it barely works when it does work, it crashes often. It drops connections to cameras randomly and there is nothing you can do to stop this. But that's not the worst part.
It is so unstable. If you actually manage to get it working correctly in the first place, it's just going to break again 6 months later and when that happens, good luck fixing it without reinstalling your distro. On Debian at least, once it stops working and you can't reinstall it again via apt repository due to cryptic errors, your only option is format and reinstall.
Unfortunately, this is the best option because of how free and open source it is. I guess just do it in a vm or something to make formatting and reinstalling easier.
It might be a good app, but like others have said, it is difficult to get running and the instructions always leave something out, like it's assumed you already understand database management. I've tried this on Debian 10, and Manjaro. Manjaro seems like an easier process, but there is not much documentation or how to videos. Maybe Ubuntu is better, but I'm giving up on Zone Minder. I'd be better off paying for something than wasting a bunch of hours going in circles. It seems to be easier to install on Gentoo, but Gentoo is in itself an extremely involved process. Can't win. I'm going to try Shinobi now.
Feels archaic and is a pain in the ass to configure, but it's by far the most stable solution I've used so far (Linux).
(Linux OS) Setting up ZM is not for the faint of heart. First off, it's all web/browser based and has a lot of dependencies (apache, MySQL, etc.) If the web page doesn't display you'll have to resort to command-line configuration editing, which is painstaking due to the way the software is designed. Secondly, the camera image files are saved deep within subdirectories making them difficult to find when not using the web-based GUI.
I'd love to find a similar alternative for Linux (have one for Windows--iSpy).
Here is an alternative answering your woes 3 years later. Not as robust yet, but getting there. https://moeiscool.github.io/Shinobi/