Is ZoneMinder right for us?

[openletter]

Hello!

I just started a new job with a small company. Although I'm in sales, the company has new owners and they need help in several areas, which I find is normal for a small business.

We currently have an ancient TruVision system that may even be hacked as we can't figure out any way to reset the Admin password, and there has been some questionable activity on the network that was reduced after we did a number of things, including unplugging it from the network, but we don't know if it is hacked plus we can't add more cameras, HDDs, etc., or generally do anything that requires admin access, so it has to be replaced, regardless.

My main question about ZoneMinder is with regards to stability. I've got experience as an enthusiast with maintaining Ubuntu Server based LEMP stack, mail stack, file servers, and even at one point as the network gateway manually configuring iptables - all for fun! I also had MythTV running for several years without issue (until HD came along and made it too expensive to be worthwhile), though in those years that project was a major PITA to initially get it up and going - that is about the only time I've ever had to edit and compile.

Anyway, once configured, is ZoneMinder truly a "set it and forget" type of project? I don't mind putting the time in to configure something, but I don't want to deal with regular issues. Most especially, I don't want to apply an update and have it break the whole thing. I generally stay away from anything outside of standard configuration options specifically for this reason, but I have had issues with projects where they break popular configurations, and I really don't want to deal with that.

I was also wondering where this project is most commonly used - are there any known large commercial installations? Do small businesses use it? Do security companies use it? Is it just a hobbyist-focused project?

Any input and feedback is much appreciated!

[knight-of-ni]

Greetings, and welcome to the forum.

ZoneMinder has been around since 2003 and is targeted towards the home and small business user, but can indeed scale up, or down, for any environment, including enterprise. Our telemetry data collected 20k unique ip addresses the first week we ran it, which only includes sites running recent versions of zoneminder and who have not turned off the telemetry information. While some may not be shocked by this, I was.

To name a specific site, the St. Louis Art Museum was running ZoneMinder, the last time I spoke with one of their employees.

If were in sales, I'd tell you that ZoneMinder, of course, is rock solid stable and is easy to set and forget. Indeed all my own sites are exactly that. I run Zabbix health monitoring on each ZoneMinder site, so I know when a problem occurs, and the only problems that do occur are usually Internet related, not ZoneMinder related. The three of us who make up the core development team formed an LLC last year. We did this for the sole purpose of selling our services to potential customers who might be willing to pay us to help them get their ZoneMinder site up and running. The software itself remains open-source and free.

However, I admit that by day I am an engineer, so naturally I feel compelled to tell you that there are common issues, which are reported regularly in the forum. Most of the issues come down to properly following the installation instructions to the letter, making changes during installation which are not in the documentation, trying to do more than the underlying hardware can handle, or learning how to program each camera, just to name a few. All of these issues can be worked through, however.

So in short, many would likely agree that ZoneMinder can be a bit complicated to set up. This is something we are certainly aware of, and are always trying to improve.

Lastly, I'm actually certified on the Truvision/Truportal products from Interlogix through my dayjob, and could possibly help you there if you decide to stick with that product. ...but of course I'd rather you go with ZoneMinder.

[openletter]

We would definitely have interest in such services. Do you have a site with pricing estimates or can you send me something?

BTW, I'm pretty good at RTFM, but I do miss things here and there, especially on the first try.

[knight-of-ni]

What we would do is write up a quote for you, once we define the scope of work.
I'll pm you my phone number so we can hash that out.