Clearcam: An Open-Source NVR That Adds Local AI to Your Existing RTSP Cameras

No need to replace your cameras or tear out your existing NVR. It reads RTSP video streams directly and runs person/vehicle detection, object tracking, and recorded footage search on your own computer.

The core NVR and AI can run locally; remote viewing and official mobile notifications are Premium features.

Compared to Frigate, Clearcam currently has a more straightforward installation process, mainly running in Python; Frigate is more mature in Docker, Home Assistant, and hardware support.

Well-suited for users who already have surveillance equipment and want to add a layer of local AI to their existing cameras first.

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Clearcam: An Open-Source NVR That Adds Local AI to Your Regular Surveillance Cameras

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If your existing surveillance cameras only record and play back footage, and you want to add person/vehicle recognition, object tracking, or recorded footage search, you often have to replace the cameras, swap out the NVR, or hook into the vendor’s own cloud service.

Clearcam is a self-hostable open-source NVR. It reads video streams from your existing RTSP cameras and performs AI object detection, tracking, and footage search locally on your own computer — no need to buy a whole new surveillance setup for these features.

If you already have IP cameras at home or in the office, an old NVR, or a spare computer or home server lying around, Clearcam is well worth tinkering with. You can keep using your original cameras, run the AI analysis on your own hardware, and reduce dependence on vendor-provided cloud features.

Project Website: Clearcam (https://clearcam.org/)

GitHub: roryclear/clearcam (https://github.com/roryclear/clearcam)

Open-source AI NVR project homepage as shown on Clearcam’s official website (https://www.ahhhhfs.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/clearcam-official-website-homepage.jpg)

What Is Clearcam? An Open-Source NVR That Adds Local AI to RTSP Cameras

An NVR is mainly responsible for receiving video streams from IP cameras, storing recordings, and providing live viewing and playback. Clearcam builds on these basic functions with an additional layer of AI analysis.

Beyond recording and playback, Clearcam also adds these capabilities:

• AI object detection
• Object tracking
• Surveillance footage search
• Mobile event notifications
• Remote live camera viewing
• Remote event recording viewing
• AI notification summaries

Clearcam already supports Qwen3 VL-based AI notification summaries, and has added similar image search and upload image search. Compared to regular NVRs that mainly rely on timeline-based playback, it adds a layer of identification and retrieval for surveillance events — making it much easier to find people, find vehicles, or trace back a specific moment.

As of October 2026, Clearcam has approximately 2.1k Stars and 206 Forks on GitHub, and the project uses the GPL-3.0 open-source license.

GPL-3.0 mainly covers the public code; the official Premium cloud service and mobile-related features remain governed by Clearcam’s own terms of service.

Clearcam’s interface for setting AI detection zones on surveillance footage (https://www.ahhhhfs.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/clearcam-detection-zone.jpg)

Which Cameras Can Connect to Clearcam? RTSP Is Key

The most important requirement Clearcam has for cameras is RTSP.

As long as the camera can provide an RTSP video stream and the computer running Clearcam can access the camera properly, you can bring the video in.

This approach is well-suited for standard IP cameras, consumer cameras that support RTSP, and existing network surveillance systems. The original cameras continue handling capture, while Clearcam performs AI analysis on the video stream.

If a camera relies entirely on a proprietary vendor protocol, can only be viewed through the official app, and doesn’t offer RTSP, it can’t be connected this way.

If you plan to build your own NVR in the future, when buying cameras, look beyond resolution, night vision, and hardware AI — also confirm open interfaces like RTSP. It directly affects whether you can later connect self-hosted surveillance software like Frigate or Clearcam.

What Can Local AI Do? Object Detection, Tracking, and Footage Search

1. Detect and track objects in surveillance footage

Clearcam performs AI inference on camera video to identify and continuously track objects in the frame.

Scenarios like someone entering a monitored area, a vehicle passing by, or needing to continuously follow a specific object are all within its scope.

This is different from traditional motion detection. Regular motion detection only knows “something moved in the frame,” while AI detection goes further to determine what appeared in the frame, making subsequent notifications more targeted.

Clearcam performing AI detection and tracking of objects in surveillance footage (https://www.ahhhhfs.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/clearcam-ai-object-detection.jpg)

2. Search past surveillance footage

Footage search is one of Clearcam’s most practical features.

Finding footage on traditional NVRs mostly relies on the timeline: remember roughly when it happened, then scrub back through recordings segment by segment. Clearcam has added similar image search and upload image search, letting you search historical footage based on images.

For example, if you have a screenshot of a vehicle, you can try finding similar frames from past recordings. For surveillance environments with a lot of recorded footage, this is far less tedious than dragging through the timeline alone.

Clearcam’s interface for searching historical surveillance footage and detected objects (https://www.ahhhhfs.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/clearcam-video-search.jpg)

3. AI notification summaries

Clearcam has also added Qwen3 VL-based AI Notification Summaries.

Beyond telling you “a person was detected,” it can further analyze the event footage and generate a summary.

This kind of feature demands more computing power than regular object detection, and actual speed will be affected by the GPU, model size, and the device it’s running on.

Clearcam using AI to generate surveillance event notification summaries (https://www.ahhhhfs.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/clearcam-ai-notification-summary.jpg)

Is Clearcam Fully Local?

Clearcam’s NVR and AI inference can run directly on your own computer, but not all features are fully offline.

Day-to-day operations — receiving RTSP streams, performing object detection, and processing recordings — can all be done locally. Viewing live footage while away from home, receiving official mobile notifications, or remotely opening event recordings are Premium features that use Clearcam’s servers and cloud storage.

The project notes that Premium data uses end-to-end encryption, though the remote service still involves the cloud.

If you don’t want to use the official notification pipeline, you can modify the notification URL and connect to Home Assistant, Pushover, or n8n yourself. AI detection continues running locally, and the notification layer can be built to suit your own environment.

How Do You Install Clearcam? Python, FFmpeg, and Docker Support

Clearcam currently runs as a Python project directly — not like many self-hosted tools where you can just spin things up with a Docker Compose file.

Your computer needs Python 3.11+ and FFmpeg. Inference is based on tinygrad. Right now, Mac and Linux work more smoothly, while Windows still has FFmpeg compatibility issues.

The startup process isn’t complicated: install the dependencies in requirements.txt, run clearcam.py, then open a browser to localhost:8080 to access the interface.

If your computer has an AMD or NVIDIA GPU, you can specify the device via the DEV parameter provided by the project to avoid putting all the inference load on the CPU.

Clearcam hasn’t yet made Docker Compose an officially standard deployment method. For people who are used to uniformly managing services with Docker on a NAS, Proxmox, or Ubuntu Server, installation, upgrades, and migrations will involve more manual steps.

Clearcam vs Frigate: How to Choose Between Two Open-Source AI NVRs

If you’re planning to build your own open-source NVR, Frigate will almost certainly come up for comparison. Clearcam’s official website has also explained why another similar project exists — it aims to simplify configuration while directly leveraging your computer’s existing GPU.

The two are at different stages of development right now.

Frigate has grown into a fairly complete local AI NVR, with Docker, Home Assistant, multi-camera management, and various hardware acceleration options well covered. Clearcam is still updating rapidly, with its focus on connecting existing RTSP cameras and adding detection, tracking, and footage search.

Frigate has broader hardware compatibility, with solutions for Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Hailo, Rockchip, and other platforms. If you’re already running Home Assistant at home or are used to managing services with Docker, integrating it into your existing environment is more convenient.

On footage search, both projects now have their own approach. Clearcam supports similar image and upload image search; Frigate’s Semantic Search can find historical events by text or image.

So what really sets them apart right now isn’t whether they have AI search — it’s the deployment method, hardware compatibility, and overall ecosystem.

If you just want to add a layer of AI to your existing RTSP cameras, Clearcam is the more direct option; if you’re planning to build a complete long-term home AI NVR, Frigate’s ecosystem is more comprehensive.

What Are Clearcam’s Current Limitations?

Windows still has FFmpeg compatibility issues; Mac and Linux are smoother.

The deployment method is still primarily as a Python project, without an official Docker Compose. For people used to managing services with a NAS, Proxmox, or Docker, ongoing maintenance will involve a bit more manual work.

Additionally, official remote viewing and mobile notifications are Premium features that use Clearcam’s servers and cloud storage. In terms of Home Assistant integration, hardware accelerators, and community resources, it currently doesn’t match Frigate’s richness.

Do You Need to Replace Your Existing NVR? How Clearcam Is Best Used

If you already have RTSP-enabled cameras at home or in the office, there’s really no need to tear out your existing surveillance system just to try Clearcam.

The official FAQ specifically notes that if you’re already using Hik-Connect, you can run Clearcam alongside it. Your original cameras and NVR continue handling recording, while Clearcam reads the RTSP video streams to perform person/vehicle detection, object tracking, and footage search.

This means minimal changes to your existing setup. If you happen to have a Mac, Linux host, or home server on hand, you can just add the AI layer without affecting your original recording pipeline.

If you later want to migrate your entire surveillance system to a self-hosted environment, then you can decide whether to switch to Frigate based on needs like Docker, Home Assistant, hardware acceleration, and multi-camera management.

FAQ

Is Clearcam free?

The core software can run for free. Official mobile remote viewing and notifications are Premium features that use Clearcam’s servers and cloud storage.

What cameras does Clearcam support?

The key requirement is that the camera can provide an RTSP video stream and that the Clearcam host can access it properly. Cameras that don’t offer RTSP and rely entirely on proprietary vendor apps cannot be connected this way.

Does Clearcam support Docker?

Currently it’s mainly run from Python source code, and Docker Compose is not an officially standard deployment method. If you plan to run it long-term on a NAS or home server, you’ll want to factor this in.

Does Clearcam support Windows?

Windows currently still has FFmpeg compatibility issues. Mac and Linux are simpler; Windows users may need to handle environment issues themselves.

Which is more suitable: Clearcam or Frigate?

If you just want to add AI detection, tracking, and footage search to your existing RTSP cameras, Clearcam’s approach is more straightforward.

If you already have a Home Assistant or Docker environment, or need broader hardware acceleration support, multi-camera management, and long-term maintenance, Frigate’s ecosystem is more complete.

Are Clearcam’s surveillance videos uploaded to the cloud?

Local NVR and AI inference can be completed on your own devices. When using the official Premium remote viewing, event recordings, and mobile notifications, Clearcam’s servers and cloud storage are used.

Project Links: Clearcam Official Website (https://clearcam.org/) | GitHub (https://github.com/roryclear/clearcam)

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