Technology comparison
VMS vs VSaaS
Compare a video management system you host with a cloud-managed service. See how deployment, maintenance, remote access and recording differ, and where TetherX combines cloud management with recording at each site.
TetherX: Built in the UK and Australia. Local representatives in Canada and India. EU, North America and APAC supported.
Six costs of on-prem VMS most buyers underestimate.
Customer-hosted Windows server
Milestone XProtect (Danish), HikCentral Pro (Chinese), DSS Pro (Chinese), Bosch BVMS (German), Exacq Vision (American JCI), Avigilon Unity (Canadian Motorola) all need a Windows or Linux server at the customer's site. Plus Microsoft SQL Server licences, OS patches, antivirus exclusions, backup strategy.
13-19% annual maintenance
Milestone Care Plus, Genetec Advantage and Bosch SMA cost roughly 13-19% of the licence price every year to keep receiving version upgrades (US reseller list prices, October 2026). Five years of Milestone Care Plus comes to 93% of the device licence price again.
Port-forward for remote viewing
Every on-prem VMS needs an inbound port through the firewall for remote access. Post-ransomware, corporate IT often requires "no inbound ports" - which is exactly what pushed installers to Eagle Eye / Brivo and TetherX in 2024-25.
Hardware refresh every 3-5 years
Windows Server hardware ages out. DIVAR IP appliances, Husky NVRs (Network Video Recorders), iSCSI storage fabrics all need replacement on a cycle. Cloud VSaaS makes that someone else's problem.
Add-on modules billed separately
LPR (Licence Plate Recognition) / ANPR, AI, facial recognition, access integration, multi-site federation - on-prem VMS bills each one as a separate module. Genetec AutoVu, Bosch BIS, Milestone BriefCam and HikCentral AcuSeek each carry their own per-camera or per-server licence stack.
NDAA compliance limits
HikCentral and DSS Pro are banned in US federal-adjacent deployments under NDAA Section 889 (the US trade rule that prohibits federal use of Chinese cameras). Canada's Hikvision ban became official in 2025; UK and Australia restrict government sites. Migrating off a banned VMS is harder than swapping cloud subscriptions.
Same management function. Two deployment models.
The honest read on where each one wins and where each one costs you something.
Traditional on-premise VMS
Strengths
Deep per-camera analytics on a tightly-coupled vendor stack (Bosch IVA on-camera, Genetec AutoVu LPR, HikCentral AcuSeek) where the VMS + camera are sold as one product
Works on air-gapped networks with no internet access at all - mandatory for some defence and critical-infrastructure sites
Trade-offs
Perpetual licence + roughly 13-19% / year maintenance plan, plus Windows Server + Microsoft SQL Server licences and appliance refresh every 3-5 years - the customer absorbs all of it
Inbound port through the firewall for remote view fails the no-inbound-ports baseline corporate IT now mandates; multi-site needs a VPN concentrator and a server build per site
TetherX cloud VSaaS
Strengths
Annual subscription priced by channel count (from £100/site/year) - dashboard, multi-site, alarms and access included; outbound-only encrypted tunnel meets the no-inbound-ports policy
1,000+ integrations and any ONVIF device, including existing Hikvision and Dahua kit ringfenced behind the TetherBox; cross-site search across the whole estate
Optional per-camera cloud recording, AI search and ARC monitoring on top - no long list of separately-licensed add-on modules, no engineer visits for upgrades
Trade-offs
If the installation must be fully air-gapped or offline, or is a single site with no need for remote access, TetherX still works, but a deep on-prem stack (Bosch BVMS Enterprise, Genetec Security Center, Milestone XProtect Corporate) is the more natural fit
Run your control room. Or connect the ARC you already use.
TetherX supplies operator queues, verification, escalation, recorded outcomes and performance reporting within its cloud platform. Work the alarms in TetherX, or forward them into a supported monitoring platform.
First-party TetherX integration connects to Intelligent Monitoring Solutions (IMS) through Patriot, with alarm images and confirmed alarm delivery. IMS lists 800+ bureaus and two A1/R1A centres. Explore TetherX control-room workflows · IMS provider information
Other security platforms also provide operator alarm handling and monitoring integrations. Compare the supplied workflow, equipment support, licence and monitoring contract for your proposal.
AI and recording terms: TetherBox AI is included in the platform subscription. Additional modules and data retention may cost extra. Cloud recording is optional; specialist services and professional monitoring are separately scoped. See current AI coverage.
Pricing figures, ownership, acquisition dates and product behaviour cited on this page are point-in-time and drawn from public sources - see the disclaimer at the bottom of this page for sourcing, "as of" date, and how to flag corrections.
Give every vendor the same tasks
Use representative cameras and a realistic incident, and ask the people who will run the system to do the work themselves.
- Find the footage of a realistic incident by place and time.
- Follow the person or vehicle across several cameras.
- Bookmark the moment and share a clip, then check the recipient can open it.
- Add a user who should see only their own sites.
- Check system health across every site from one screen.
- Pull the network cable. Note what keeps recording, what you can still watch on site, and what catches up when the link returns.
- Test one integration you rely on, such as an alarm panel, door or sensor. A video feed of another system on screen is not the same as the data behind it: check its events arrive on the timeline, where you can search them and act on them.
Start with the cameras you have. Send us your camera list, through your installer or distributor if you have one, and we'll tell you which models are supported, which features each keeps, and whether anything needs replacing.
See these tasks in a TetherX walkthrough, then run them at one of your sites with a 30-day trial through an installer partner.
Questions before you move from VMS to VSaaS
A VMS (Video Management System) is software running on a Windows or Linux server inside the customer's building. VSaaS (Video Surveillance as a Service) does the same job as a cloud subscription - no customer-managed server. Both handle cameras, recording, playback and alerts; the difference is where the management software lives. See VSaaS hub for the full definition.
Pure on-premise VMS: Milestone XProtect (Danish, Canon-owned), Genetec Security Center (Canadian), HikCentral Pro (Chinese, Hikvision), DSS Pro (Chinese, Dahua), Bosch BVMS (German, sold to Triton Partners December 2024, now under Keenfinity Group), Exacq Vision (American, Johnson Controls), Avigilon Unity (Canadian, Motorola Solutions American), Senstar Symphony (Canadian, ex-Aimetis 2016 acquisition), VIVOTEK VAST 2 / VSS (Taiwanese, Delta Electronics 100% as of December 2025).
Pure VSaaS: Verkada (American), Rhombus (American), Cisco Meraki MV (American), Eagle Eye / Brivo (American), Videoloft (British), Camcloud (Canadian), YourSix (American, Axis-only on cameras), Avigilon Alta (Canadian, Motorola Solutions American), TetherX.
Both: Milestone (XProtect on-prem + Arcules cloud - the Arcules brand merged back into Milestone July 2024), Genetec (Security Center on-prem + Stratocast + Security Center SaaS cloud), Hikvision (HikCentral Pro on-prem + HikCentral Connect cloud).
Because hybrid lets a VMS vendor keep its existing on-prem revenue (perpetual licences plus a yearly maintenance plan of roughly 13-19% of the licence price, branded Care Plus, Genetec Advantage or SMA - Software Maintenance Agreement) while parking a small cloud feature on top to keep cloud-curious buyers happy. Milestone's own blog defending hybrid walks back the cloud commitment. Continental Computers, a Milestone reseller, runs the same playbook on its public content. Honest reading: hybrid is the right answer only where a site must stay fully air-gapped or offline. Everywhere else it's usually the VMS vendor protecting its on-prem revenue, dressed up as architecture.
Two places. Fully air-gapped or offline installations - defence sites, utility substations and other sites where policy forbids any internet or cloud traffic. A single site with no remote access requirement, where nobody needs to view or manage it from anywhere else. A cloud platform such as TetherX still works there, but an installed VMS fits that brief. Site size is not the deciding factor.
Everywhere else, the fundamental costs of on-prem - Windows Server hosting, Microsoft SQL Server licences, port-forwarding for remote viewing, painful version upgrades, hardware refresh every 3-5 years, a yearly maintenance plan of roughly 13-19% of the licence price - pile up year after year.
Multi-site estates, installer recurring-revenue models, government-adjacent sectors under NDAA or country bans, customers who don't want a server room to maintain, and corporate IT teams that require "no inbound ports" (sometimes triggered by a ransomware incident, more often just modern security baseline). Cloud-managed multi-site is the default in 2026 for retail, hospitality, housing, healthcare and logistics estates.
The hidden cost in perpetual-licence VMS is the yearly maintenance plan (Milestone Care Plus, Genetec Advantage, Bosch SMA - same concept, different label): roughly 13-19% of the licence price every year at US reseller list prices in October 2026 (Bosch 12.8%, Genetec 16.9-17.8%, Milestone 18.3-18.6%), needed to keep receiving version upgrades. Five years of Milestone Care Plus comes to 93% of the device licence price again. Add Windows Server hardware refresh every 3-5 years, Microsoft SQL Server licences, separately-licensed analytics modules (number-plate recognition, facial, AI), and leftover licences when a site shrinks.
VSaaS subscription is one line: per-camera or per-channel, upgrades and patches included.
TetherX is an open cloud VSaaS - what Milestone comparison (Milestone Arcules cloud), Genetec comparison (Genetec Security Center SaaS) and HikCentral comparison (HikCentral Connect) are trying to be, except built cloud-native from day one instead of bolted onto an on-prem codebase. Plus a TetherBox at each site for resilience, ringfencing of restricted hardware, and an outbound-only encrypted tunnel so no inbound ports are needed.
For single sites and multi-site estates that need remote access, TetherX is usually the cleaner answer. A fully air-gapped or offline installation, or a single site with no need for remote access, will still work on TetherX, but an installed VMS such as Genetec Security Center fits that brief.
Yes. 30-day free trial through an integrator partner with a TetherBox, full platform access, and a dedicated onboarding contact. Run TetherX alongside the existing VMS for comparison. Extensions on request - no card required.
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A one-page open cloud VMS versus locked-platform breakdown: what you keep, what you cut, what it costs. We will email it over, usually the same working day.
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Counts reflect partners currently in the TetherX directory holding each accreditation.
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[1] About this comparison. Information about other vendors is drawn from their public product pages, datasheets, integrator forums (Reddit, vendor user groups), public CVE databases (NVD, CISA), publicly-listed LinkedIn company pages (headcount, headquarters, founding year, leadership transitions and corporate ownership signals) and customer conversations - accurate to the best of our knowledge as of Q3 2026. Pricing, features, security posture and policies change. A vendor may have shipped a fix, dropped a price, added a region or changed an architecture since this page was last reviewed.
If you believe anything here is inaccurate or out of date, please contact us and we will review and correct it. Trademarks and product names belong to their respective owners and are referenced here for identification only.
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