Self-hosted VMS for Mac & Linux · iPhone companion

Your cameras. Your machine.
Your footage.

Sentinel is a self-hosted video management system with on-device AI. Record every camera at full quality, watch live on your network — or from anywhere with the Remote Access add-on — and keep every frame on hardware you own. No cloud, no monthly cloud fee.

Coming soon See pricing

Mac app launching soon · free iPhone companion · two cameras free

Sentinel VMS for Mac showing a live multi-camera grid with AI detection, recording timeline, and the camera inspector
ONVIF & RTSP On-device AI H.264 / H.265 recording Mac, Linux & iPhone No cloud relay Two cameras free
Live view

See every camera, the moment it happens

A native macOS live wall in 1, 4, 9, or 16 tiles, with motion and person markers on the timeline and 6–8 second glass-to-glass latency over standard HLS. Scrub back through recordings without leaving the grid.

  • ✓ Multi-camera grid with drag-to-reorder and fullscreen
  • ✓ Timeline scrubber with motion & AI-event markers
  • ✓ One camera, many viewers, with built-in restreaming
Sentinel live camera grid on macOS
On-device AI · free

AI that understands what it sees

People, vehicles, faces, license plates, animals, and loitering — all detected on-device with Apple's Vision framework. No internet, no per-event cloud bill. Every detector lives in one AI Center, each with a live status, today's event count, and a one-switch toggle.

  • ✓ Six detection types, processed locally and free
  • ✓ Live person tracking with stable IDs and on-frame boxes
  • ✓ One AI Center — every detector, its status, and recent activity in one place
Sentinel VMS AI Center on macOS — every on-device detector with live status and today's event counts, plus optional Claude cloud AI
Cloud AI · Claude · optional

Ask your footage anything

Add the AI Alerts plan and Claude turns raw detections into answers — a Ring-style sentence for whoever's at the door, a threat read on every event, and plain-English search across everything your cameras have seen. Only the frames you choose to describe ever leave your machine.

  • ✓ Scene descriptions — "person in a dark jacket left a package by the door"
  • ✓ Threat classification — each event rated routine → suspicious, anomalies flagged on the timeline
  • ✓ AI search — "anyone in a red shirt last night?" across every recorded event
  • ✓ Daily digest — a plain-English recap of what happened today

AI Alerts · $4.99/month · 1,000 described alerts included. Every other detector stays on-device and free.

Sentinel AI event feed with Claude scene descriptions and threat reads
iPhone & iPad · free

Take it with you

Pair once with a QR code, then watch live, scrub recordings, and get push alerts on your home Wi-Fi — or from anywhere on cellular with the Remote Access add-on. A tapped alert opens straight to the camera that triggered it. The companion app is free on iPhone and iPad.

  • ✓ Universal app for iPhone and iPad
  • ✓ Live grid, pinch-zoom, Picture-in-Picture & fullscreen
  • ✓ Push alerts that deep-link to the right camera
Sentinel on iPad showing the home dashboard with cameras and recent AI activity
Sentinel on iPhone showing the home dashboard with live alerts and recent activity
Self-hosted & private

Own your footage. Every frame stays on your machine.

Your machine is the only server. Video, recordings, and AI all run on your hardware and your network. No third-party cloud can read your cameras, and there's no subscription just to watch your own footage.

No cloud relay in the data path Keychain + Touch ID credentials Signed evidence export · SHA-256 Remote access add-on · no port-forwarding
Easy setup

Find your cameras in minutes

Sentinel discovers cameras automatically over ONVIF, mDNS, and an active subnet scan, with brand presets for Hikvision, Dahua, Axis, Reolink, Amcrest and more. The media engine is bundled inside the app, so there's nothing else to install.

  • ✓ Auto-discovery: ONVIF, Bonjour & subnet sweep
  • ✓ 12 brand presets + generic ONVIF / RTSP
  • ✓ Bundled GStreamer + MediaMTX, zero dependencies
Sentinel Add Camera dialog with ONVIF network scan and automatic profile discovery
Simple pricing

Two cameras free.
Add more for $30/year each.

Full recording, live view, and on-device AI on every camera. Optional add-ons: Remote Access $3.99/month, and the AI Alerts plan $4.99/month for Claude scene descriptions, threat reads, search & daily digest. The iPhone app is always free.

Coming soon See full pricing →
FAQ

Questions before you download

Everything you need to know about running Sentinel on your own hardware.

Do I really not need the cloud?+
Correct. Sentinel runs entirely on your Mac. Cameras stream to your machine over your local network, and recording plus on-device AI all happen there. Nothing is uploaded to a third-party server, and your two free cameras keep recording even fully offline.
Which cameras work with Sentinel?+
Any ONVIF camera, which covers the vast majority of IP security cameras. Sentinel auto-discovers them over ONVIF, Bonjour, and a subnet scan, with one-tap presets for Axis, Hanwha, Hikvision, Dahua and more, plus generic ONVIF/RTSP for everything else.
How does pricing work?+
Your first two cameras are free forever, with full recording, live view, and on-device AI. Additional cameras are $30/year each. Two optional add-ons: Remote Access ($3.99/mo) to watch from anywhere, and AI scene descriptions ($4.99/mo). The iPhone and iPad app is always free. See full pricing →
What do I need to run it?+
A Mac on macOS 13 or later (Apple Silicon or Intel) that stays powered on to record. The media engine (GStreamer and MediaMTX) is bundled inside the app, so there's nothing else to install. Recordings are written to your Mac, so how much history you keep is limited only by your own disk.
Continuous recording or motion-only?+
Both, configurable per camera. Record 24/7, or only when motion or a person/vehicle is detected. On-device AI marks motion, people, vehicles, faces, license plates, and loitering right on the timeline so you can jump straight to what matters.
Can I watch when I'm away from home?+
On your home Wi-Fi everything works out of the box. To watch from cellular or another network, add the Remote Access add-on ($3.99/mo). It tunnels securely with no port-forwarding and nothing exposed on your router.
How private is my footage, really?+
Every frame stays on your machine. There's no cloud relay in the data path, camera credentials are stored in the macOS Keychain behind Touch ID, and evidence exports are SHA-256 signed. No third party, including us, can see your cameras.
Is there a Linux or Windows version?+
Linux is on the roadmap: the same self-hosted server for a NAS, mini-PC, or home server. Get notified at launch. A Windows version isn't planned yet.

Still have a question? Email us. We read every one.

Get Sentinel

The Mac server app is launching soon — Linux is on the way too. The free iPhone companion lets you watch from anywhere.

Desktop app · coming soon

Sentinel for Mac

The server: discovery, recording, live view, and on-device AI. Run two cameras free, forever.

macOS 13+Apple Silicon & IntelDeveloper ID signedNotarized
Coming soon
The Mac app is launching soon — get notified at launch.
Server · coming soon

Sentinel for Linux

The same self-hosted server, built for Linux — discovery, recording, live view, and on-device AI on a NAS, mini-PC, or home server.

x86-64 & ARM64NAS & home serverSelf-hosted
Coming soon
On the roadmap — get notified at launch.
Field companion · free

Sentinel for iPhone

Pair with a QR code and watch live cameras, recordings, and AI alerts on your network — or anywhere with Remote Access. Free, no in-app purchases.

iOS 16+iPhone & iPadFreeNo tracking
Coming to the App Store
Free companion app — get notified at launch.