Software on Cameras You Own
Lumana Alternative Lumana Competitors and Pricing Compared for Teams That Already Own Their Cameras
Lumana and Surveillant both read the IP cameras you already have. The split is architectural. Lumana records and analyzes on a Core appliance on your network and quotes an annual licence privately. Surveillant runs entirely in the cloud, adds nothing to the rack, and publishes the per-camera price on a page you can read without talking to anyone.
Lumana licensing description quoted from lumana.ai as published in September 2026. Lumana lists no dollar figures.
What is the best alternative to Lumana?
For a team that owns its cameras and wants the price before the sales call, Surveillant is the closest Lumana alternative: AI video security software on existing RTSP and ONVIF cameras at a published $49 to $75 per camera per month, with no on-site appliance to buy. For an enterprise that wants edge recording, face recognition and a lifetime hardware warranty, Lumana itself remains the stronger fit.
Both products start from the same premise, which is that ripping out working cameras to buy AI is a waste. Lumana says it is camera-agnostic and compatible with any IP camera carrying an RTSP stream or ONVIF. Surveillant says the same thing. Where the two part company is what else has to arrive before the software works, and whether you can find out the price without a discovery call. The rest of this page works through that with Lumana's own published wording, and says plainly where Lumana is the better buy.
Lumana vs Surveillant
Where Each One Wins, Feature by Feature
Lumana entries come from lumana.ai as published in September 2026. Where Lumana does not describe a capability we mark it as not advertised rather than assuming it is absent.
| Capability | Lumana | Surveillant | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Runs on existing cameras | Yes, any IP camera with RTSP or ONVIF; Axis, Bosch, Hanwha, Avigilon, Dahua, VIVOTEK, FLIR, Pelco named; minimum 2 MP at 10 FPS | Yes, RTSP and ONVIF, plus NVR feeds from Hikvision, Dahua, Uniview, Axis | Tie |
| Published price | None. Annual recurring licence set by camera feeds, days of storage and licence term, quoted privately | $49 to $75 per camera per month on four fixed plans, buy online | Surveillant |
| On-site hardware | Lumana Core, in Standard and 1U models, replaces the DVR or NVR and records to industrial-grade SSDs | None. Streams are read over the network, nothing is added to the rack | Surveillant on capital cost; Lumana if you want video staying on site |
| Where the AI runs | Mostly local on the Core, with the cloud adding remote access, extra processing and updates | Cloud-native, no local inference hardware | Lumana for bandwidth-constrained or offline-tolerant sites |
| Feature packaging | All features standard, no tiers or feature gates | Four plans by camera count; the detection and search feature set is the same on every plan | Tie |
| Detections | Over 100 capabilities listed, including face recognition, threat detection, fire detection, gun detection, near-miss and behavioral analytics, driven by its VIA-1 model and four agents | Intrusion, loitering, weapon detection, crowd formation, vehicle violations, abandoned objects, PPE compliance, plus custom rules written in plain English | Lumana on breadth and on fire and face; Surveillant on rules you define yourself |
| Face recognition | Listed as an included capability | Not offered | Lumana |
| Search | Smart Search, multi-parameter filtering across video metadata | Plain-English search across every camera and site, for example "white van at the dock after 9pm" | Surveillant on phrasing; both index the footage |
| Retention | Local on the Core by default, real-time cloud backup up to 365 days, unlimited cloud archiving, up to 4K | Cloud retention by plan; analysis runs continuously regardless of where footage is stored | Lumana |
| Hardware warranty | Lifetime warranty on all Lumana hardware | Not applicable, no hardware is sold | Lumana, if you are buying its hardware |
| Compliance posture | SOC 2 Type II, NDAA, HIPAA and GDPR stated | AES-256, SSO via SAML and OIDC, role-based access, audit log, data residency options | Lumana on named certifications, notably HIPAA |
| Time to first alert | Quote, then hardware, then deployment | Self-serve; first cameras analyzed within minutes of signup | Surveillant |
Read that table as one question rather than twelve. Lumana is built for an organization that wants video and inference to stay on its own network, that needs face and fire detection in the same platform, and that has the procurement patience for a hardware-plus-licence quote. Surveillant is built for a team that wants the AI layer on cameras it already runs, wants the number in advance, and would rather not own another box. Same cameras, very different purchase.
How much does Lumana cost compared with Surveillant?
Lumana does not publish prices. Its pricing page states that Lumana pricing is an annual recurring license determined by the number of camera feeds, days of storage and license terms, payable yearly or upfront, with all features included rather than split into tiers. Quotes also carry Lumana Core hardware, so a budget needs both the licence line and the appliance line.
Surveillant prices by plan instead of by quote: Starter at $49 for one camera, Plus at $149 for two, Pro at $449 for six and Elite at $1,499 for twenty, which works out to $49 to $75 per camera per month with no hardware and no agreement stage. The table below sets the two side by side at three common estate sizes. Every Lumana cell is marked as a quote, because inventing a number for a vendor that publishes none would be worse than useless to anyone budgeting.
| Cameras | Lumana, software | Lumana, hardware | Surveillant, all in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 cameras, one site | Annual licence, quoted | At least one Core, quoted | $449 per month, $74.83 per camera |
| 20 cameras, one site | Annual licence, quoted | Core sized to feeds and retention, quoted | $1,499 per month, $74.95 per camera |
| 100 cameras, five sites | Annual licence, quoted; per-camera rates typically fall with volume | Core hardware per site, quoted | Five Elite plans, $7,495 per month |
What to ask Lumana for in writing
Three numbers decide the comparison, and only one of them is the headline. Ask for the annual licence per camera feed at your exact count, the Core hardware cost per site including the retention you actually need, and the renewal rate at the end of the term. A platform that includes every feature by default is genuinely simpler to price, but the storage variable does most of the work in that formula, so a quote built on 30 days looks very different from one built on 90.
Where the published-price model actually helps
Not because it is always cheaper, because at a hundred cameras it may not be. It helps because you can build the business case before you spend a week in procurement, and because a per-camera monthly figure with no appliance behind it is reversible. If the AI does not earn its keep on your sites, you stop paying. A Core already racked and depreciating is a decision that stays made.
For a fuller breakdown of how quote-only vendors structure their numbers, see our Lumana pricing guide, and for the market-wide view of what AI analytics costs per camera, our AI video analytics cost guide lays out the bands by vendor type.
Who are Lumana's competitors?
Lumana competes in three directions. Appliance and edge platforms: Coram AI, Ambient.ai and Eagle Eye Networks. Camera-bound cloud platforms: Verkada and Rhombus, which require their own cameras. Software-only AI on cameras you already own: Surveillant and Volt AI. Which group fits depends on whether you are willing to buy hardware to get the software.
| Vendor | Model | Published price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lumana | Software plus Core appliance on your cameras | Not published | Enterprises wanting edge recording, face and fire detection, HIPAA posture |
| Coram AI | Software plus on-site appliance | Not published | Mid-market sites that want a simple cloud console over existing cameras |
| Verkada | Proprietary cameras plus licence | Cameras roughly $699 to $5,299 MSRP; licence quoted through resellers | Organizations replacing the whole estate and wanting one vendor for everything |
| Rhombus | Proprietary cameras plus licence | Cameras $399 to $3,299; Professional licence $149 per camera per year | Buyers who want a published hardware price sheet and simple licensing |
| Volt AI | Software only, with a staffed review centre | From $45 K-12, $55 higher ed, $65 organizations per camera per month | Schools and campuses that want humans verifying every alert |
| Ambient.ai | AI on existing cameras via edge appliances on site | Not published | Large enterprises with a security operations team already in place |
| Surveillant | Software only, cloud, no appliance | $49 to $75 per camera per month, four plans | Teams that own cameras and want the price and the first alert the same day |
Two honest notes on that table. Only three of these seven vendors publish anything you can budget from, which tells you how the category still sells. And the cheapest row is not automatically the right one: if your sites need video held locally for retention or bandwidth reasons, a cloud-only platform is answering a different question. Compare within the group that matches your constraint, then compare on price.
Sibling comparisons on this site cover the same decision from other angles: Coram AI alternative, Ambient.ai alternative, Volt AI alternative and Verkada alternative.
The Core Appliance Is the Real Decision, Not the Feature List
Most Lumana comparisons get written as a features bake-off. That is the wrong axis. Lumana's feature list is long and largely standard across its platform, so on capability it will match or beat most of the market. The question that actually changes your budget and your exit options is whether you put a box on site.
Lumana's pricing page describes Lumana Core as the device that replaces your DVR or NVR, holding recordings on industrial-grade SSDs, and its platform documentation describes Core as what runs the real-time analysis locally while the cloud handles remote access, extra processing and updates. That is a defensible architecture. Local inference means less upstream bandwidth, footage that survives an internet outage, and video that never leaves the building unless you choose cloud archiving. For a hospital, a manufacturing plant on a thin rural link, or anyone whose policy says recordings stay on site, that is worth paying for.
It also means a capital purchase, a rack unit, a warranty relationship and a piece of equipment sized to the retention you specified at quote time. Grow the estate or extend retention and the sizing conversation reopens. Surveillant has no equivalent, which is a real advantage on cost and reversibility and a real disadvantage if your constraint is bandwidth or data residency on premises. Decide that first. It eliminates half the market before you have compared a single detection type.
If you are working through the same question more broadly, our guide on cloud vs on-premise video surveillance runs the cost model at several camera counts, and how to add AI to existing security cameras covers what the retrofit actually involves.
Who Should Pick Lumana, and Who Should Pick the Alternative
Choose Lumana if
- Policy or bandwidth requires recordings and inference to stay on site
- You need face recognition or fire detection inside the same platform
- HIPAA posture is a procurement requirement, not a preference
- You want long retention, up to 365 days of cloud backup or unlimited archiving
- A lifetime hardware warranty is worth more to you than a published price
Choose Surveillant if
- You want the per-camera price before you speak to anyone
- Adding hardware to the rack is the thing you are trying to avoid
- You want to be live on a few cameras this afternoon, not next quarter
- Your team writes its own detection rules in plain English
- You want the ability to stop paying without stranded equipment
Choose neither if
- You want a third party watching and verifying alerts at 2am; that is a monitoring service
- You mainly need recording and playback, where a conventional VMS licence costs far less
- Your cameras are analog with no encoder, since neither platform can read them
- You have fewer than a handful of cameras and no real security workload
How to Move From Lumana to Surveillant Without Replacing a Camera
Both platforms read standard RTSP and ONVIF, so nothing on the wall changes. The sequence below is the one that avoids a coverage gap and the one surprise that catches people out, which is footage sitting on an appliance you are about to return.
- 1. Read the notice period first. Lumana licences are annual and payable yearly or upfront, so find the renewal date before anything else. Migrating two months into a twelve-month term means paying twice for ten months.
- 2. Export what you must keep. Recordings held on a Lumana Core live on that appliance. Pull anything tied to an open incident, an insurance claim or a retention obligation before the hardware leaves, because afterwards it is gone.
- 3. Connect the streams in parallel. Point Surveillant at the same RTSP or ONVIF URLs while Lumana is still running. Cameras can feed both. This is the step that removes the risk, since you are comparing live rather than trusting a demo.
- 4. Rebuild the rules, do not copy them. Zones and detection rules do not transfer between platforms. Most teams find this is where they delete half of what they had, because rules accumulate and the noisy ones were never removed.
- 5. Run both for two weeks, then cancel. Two weeks covers a full operating cycle including a weekend and a delivery pattern. If alert quality holds, stop the Lumana licence at renewal and decide what happens to the Core.
One thing worth planning for: if the Core was also your recorder, cancelling the licence changes where video is stored, not just who analyzes it. Decide whether cloud retention on the new platform covers your obligation, or whether you keep an NVR for recording and use the AI layer on top. Our guide to retrofitting versus replacing security cameras covers that split in more detail.
Questions Buyers Ask About Lumana Alternatives
Does Lumana work with existing cameras?
Yes. Lumana states it is camera-agnostic and compatible with any IP camera that supports an RTSP stream or ONVIF, naming Axis, Bosch, Hanwha, Avigilon, Dahua, VIVOTEK, FLIR and Pelco, with a minimum of 2 MP at 10 FPS. The cameras stay. What changes is the recorder, because Lumana Core is designed to replace a DVR or NVR.
Do I have to buy the Lumana Core appliance?
Lumana's pricing page presents Lumana Core as the device that replaces your DVR or NVR and stores video on industrial-grade SSDs, and its platform page describes Core as what enables local AI processing and the hybrid-cloud design. Treat it as a capital line in the quote. A cloud-only platform such as Surveillant has no equivalent box, which is the main structural cost difference between the two.
Does Lumana offer face recognition?
Lumana lists face recognition among the detection capabilities included with the platform. Surveillant does not offer face recognition at all. If identity matching is a requirement for your sites, that is a genuine reason to choose Lumana, and it is worth checking your state's biometric privacy rules before you deploy it.
Why does Lumana not publish pricing?
Because the quote has several moving parts. Lumana states that price is set by the number of camera feeds, the days of storage and the licence term, and a deployment also needs Core hardware sized to those choices. That is genuinely harder to put on a page than a flat per-camera rate. It does mean you cannot build a budget without a sales conversation, which is the practical cost of that model.
Is Lumana better than Coram AI?
They are close in shape, since both put an appliance on site and quote privately. Lumana publishes a broader detection list, names SOC 2 Type II, NDAA, HIPAA and GDPR, and offers a lifetime hardware warranty. Coram is generally pitched at smaller estates. Neither publishes a price, so a written quote at your camera count is the only way to compare them honestly.
Can I switch from Lumana to Surveillant without replacing cameras?
Yes. Both platforms read standard RTSP and ONVIF streams, so the cameras, mounts and cabling stay exactly as installed. Point the streams at Surveillant, run both in parallel through the notice period on your Lumana agreement, then stop the licence. The one thing to plan is recording, since footage held on a Lumana Core needs exporting before the appliance leaves.
Which is cheaper, Lumana or Surveillant?
At small counts Surveillant is almost certainly cheaper, because $49 to $75 per camera per month carries no hardware. At a hundred cameras across several sites the answer depends entirely on the Lumana quote, since per-camera licence rates usually fall with volume while cloud pricing stays linear. Get the Lumana number at your exact count before assuming either way.
Keep Reading
If you are still shortlisting, the Lumana pricing guide goes deeper on what a quote contains and how to compare it with published rates. The best AI security camera software roundup ranks the wider field, and ONVIF-compatible software covers what to check on your cameras before any of this matters.
Run It on the Same Streams Lumana Would Use
Connect an RTSP or ONVIF camera and see the alerts and the search before you sit through a quote. Nothing goes in the rack, and the price is on the pricing page.