Blue Iris Software Reviews

I really wanted Blue Iris to work out because it sounded like a solid option, but the camera support was hit or miss for me. My Dahua cam connected fine, but my cheaper ONVIF camera kept dropping or showing the wrong settings, and I ended up wasting way too much time messing with ports, profiles, and random tweaks. There is support info out there, but a lot of it felt unclear or incomplete when I actually needed help. Maybe it’s great if you have the right brands, but with my setup it was frustrating enough that I lost trust in it quickly

Blue Iris definitely has a ton of features, and if you’re the kind of person who likes tweaking every setting, there’s a lot to like. I got my cameras running and the alert options are flexible once you figure out where everything is.
The downside is it can feel messy and overwhelming. I’d think I finally had something set up right, then realize there was another setting buried somewhere else that changed the whole thing, like the goalposts kept moving. It’s good software, just not something I’d call simple or beginner-friendly.

When everything is working, I actually like the setup. But every time an update rolls out, it seems like something breaks and I have to spend time fixing it again. If you enjoy tinkering, it might not bother you, but for me it’s getting tiring.

I tried getting Blue Iris set up and kept running into roadblocks. The menus felt cluttered, a lot of the settings weren’t explained well, and I had to keep searching online just to figure out basic things. It made the whole process feel frustrating, and a lot of that confusion seems avoidable.

The mobile app does what it’s supposed to do for the most part, and the basic controls work fine. That said, streams can be slow to load sometimes, which gets frustrating. If people are paying for a service, it feels only fair that the app should be a little more reliable and not make you wait around so much.

The tutorials did help me get through the basic Blue Iris setup, so I appreciated that. A few of the pages felt a little scattered though, and I had to click around/search for clear answers. Not a bad experience overall, haha, just could be a bit easier to follow

The recording quality is okay overall, but it’s kind of hit or miss. Daytime videos usually look decent, but at night they can get blurry and harder to make out. Not terrible, just not as sharp as I was hoping.

Blue Iris does work, and I can see why people like it, but am I missing something with how heavy it runs? Even with just a few cameras, my CPU usage jumps way up, and every so often the app gets laggy or freezes for a bit. I’ve messed around with the settings trying to lighten the load, but it still feels like a lot for my system. It’s not totally unusable, just more frustrating than I expected for everyday use...

I really wanted this to work better, but the motion alerts have been frustrating. It’ll miss an actual person walking up to the door, like a delivery driver, a neighbor, or someone taking the trash cans past the camera, but then it’ll alert me for random shadows, tree branches moving, headlights passing by, or even a little change in sunlight on the porch. I’ve had times where someone was clearly there in the recording and I never got a notification, but then five minutes later I’m getting pinged because a leaf blew across the driveway. It just doesn’t feel reliable enough if you’re counting on it to catch real activity.

I got Blue Iris mostly so I could check my cameras when I’m not home, but the remote access has been really frustrating. Sometimes it connects fine, and other times it just sits there loading or won’t open at all. I’ve already spent way more time messing with settings than I expected. Not saying it’s a scam, but when the main feature I bought it for only works half the time, it’s annoying.

I used to have a better experience with this, but after the recent updates it’s been crashing way too often for me. Not saying it’s a scam, but it’s frustrating when something I expected to rely on keeps breaking like this.

Blue Iris has been good overall for my camera setup. It took me a bit to get everything dialed in, and yeah, the setup process is not exactly what I’d call friendly, but once it’s running, it does what I need it to do. I also appreciate that the license isn’t some never-ending monthly subscription, because i’m so tired of every app acting like it needs rent money.
That said, the upgrade/support plan is where I start getting annoyed. After the first year, it kind of feels like you’re paying again just to not fall behind, which rubs me the wrong way a little. I get that software needs updates and support costs money, fine, but it still ends up feeling less like a one-time purchase than I expected. Not a ripoff, but not exactly cheap either.

The UI is confusing, and getting around the menus feels way clunkier than it should. I was just trying to use the thing, not embark on a thrilling treasure hunt through random settings.

I waited several days to hear back and when they finally responded, it didn’t really solve anything. My sister even looked over the messages with me and was just as confused as I was. Frustrating experience overall.

I really wanted Blue Iris to work out, but it just made my PC run loud and sluggish, even after I spent time adjusting the settings. At some point, I realized I was spending more energy trying to make the software behave than actually feeling secure with my setup. For me, it wasn’t worth the hassle