The big consumer camera brands are cheap to buy and expensive to keep. Forty dollars a month for cloud storage, per location, forever, is a thousand dollars every two years for the privilege of watching your own driveway. Locally recorded systems flip that: more up front, nothing after. But "no subscription" gets sold as if there is no trade-off, and there is.
What local recording does better
Cost over time. A four-camera UniFi Protect system with an NVR costs more than four doorbell-brand cameras on day one. By the end of year two it is cheaper, and by year five it is much cheaper. The hardware lasts seven to ten years.
Footage stays in the building. Nothing is uploaded unless you choose to. If the internet is down, it still records. If the company goes out of business or changes its terms, your cameras keep working. That has happened to subscription brands more than once.
Wired power and video. PoE cameras have no batteries to charge and no Wi-Fi to drop. They record continuously, not just on motion, which is the difference between "something happened at 2 a.m." and "here is the car, here is the plate."
Image quality. 4K PoE cameras with proper lenses produce usable evidence. Battery cameras are built around power budgets, and it shows at night.
What you give up
Installation. Every camera needs a cable to the rack. That is a proper job, not a peel-and-stick afternoon, and it is most of the cost. If you rent or cannot run cable, this is a real obstacle.
Off-site backup is on you. If someone steals the NVR, the footage goes with it unless you have set up off-site backup of clips. We do this as standard, but it is a step the cloud brands handle for you by default.
The app is less polished. UniFi Protect's app is good, and has improved a lot, but the consumer brands spend enormous money on theirs. Package detection and "is that a person or a cat" are comparable now; the consumer brands still win on hand-holding.
Remote access needs setting up properly. The consumer brands just work from anywhere because everything goes through their cloud. A local system needs secure remote access configured, which is easy to get wrong. Port-forwarding an NVR to the internet is how cameras end up on public shodan lists. Done right, it is invisible to you.
Our honest recommendation
If you own the building and plan to be there more than two years, wired cameras with local recording are the better system and the cheaper one. If you rent, move often, or only want one camera at the front door, a subscription doorbell is a reasonable choice and we will say so.
Either way, ask for continuous recording, a retention period in writing, and a plan for what happens to footage if the recorder walks.
Cabling, networks, cameras, access control, smart homes, hosting and software for homes and small business across Southwestern Ontario. Twenty-plus years in the trade, and we still answer the phone.