FOUNDER'S UPDATE · SPRING 2026
A Letter to the Community:
Bluecherry is Opening Back Up
Dear Bluecherry community,
Bluecherry is opening back up! I wanted to share why I had to step away for a while, what's been happening behind the scenes, and where we're taking things from here.
Alongside running Bluecherry, I was working full-time in law enforcement.. and between shift work, the demands of the job, keeping up with software updates, answering support tickets late at night and balancing life, I just couldn't give the project the attention it deserved. I had to prioritize my law enforcement career, which meant making the tough call to step back and pause the commercial side of Bluecherry.
I have since retired from law enforcement.. which finally gives me the time and focus to jump back into Bluecherry full-time. I'm really excited to be back in active development; modernizing the platform, cleaning up old technical debt, and rebuilding the commercial side so the project is sustainable for years to come.
What's new in Version 4
Instead of just patching older code, we used this break to rebuild things properly.. and a lot of the major pieces are already working and being tested:
Modern Web UI & REST API
The old PHP web interface is completely gone.. we retired over 750 legacy files and replaced it with a fast Next.js frontend and Node REST API. It has a real dark theme, collapsible sidebar, quick ⌘K command palette, and per-user preferences; plus it's snappy on both desktop and mobile.
Battle-Tested C++ Core
Underneath the new web interface runs the same C++ recording engine (bc-server) our community has trusted for over a decade.. updated for modern Linux distributions, current FFmpeg libraries, and stable multi-stream recording.
Better Camera Discovery
A new ONVIF discovery setup that scans your local network, handles odd manufacturer quirks automatically, and makes setting up sub-streams for recording and live viewing painless.. no more fighting with weird RTSP path strings.
Event-Anchored Playback
Low-latency live viewing with WebSocket, HLS, and MJPEG options.. paired with a timeline that jumps straight to motion and trigger events so you aren't stuck scrubbing through hours of empty footage.
Incident Evidence Bundles
Coming from a law enforcement background, clean evidence handling matters a lot to me.. so you can export complete incident packages with video clips, cryptographic SHA-256 integrity hashes, and a clean chain of custody sheet ready for police or insurance.
Camera Health Watchdog
Continuous 24-hour feed coverage monitoring and gap detection.. if a camera drops offline or a network switch hiccups, the system flags it right away so you don't find out days later that a feed went dark.
Smart Detection, Done Locally
Anyone who runs outdoor cameras knows all about false motion alarms.. bugs flying past the lens, rain, tree branches blowing in the wind, or headlights sweeping across a wall at night. We're tackling this with local smart detection built right into the engine:
On-Device Object Detection (No Cloud Required)
We're actively working on person and vehicle detection that runs straight on your server hardware.. utilizing Intel QuickSync and integrated GPUs with OpenVINO first, with NVIDIA acceleration to follow. You don't need a massive expensive server or third-party cloud APIs to get reliable motion filtering.
Completely Local and Private: Your video feeds, snapshots, and detection events never leave your local network.. there are no third-party servers watching your feeds, no monthly cloud API fees, and zero cloud latency.
Quick Event Filtering: We're tying this directly into playback; so you can quickly filter your recordings for actual people or vehicles instead of clicking through hundreds of false motion triggers.
Best of all, smart detection won't be locked behind an expensive cloud subscription or treated as an overpriced add-on.. it's being built directly into Bluecherry, included in all perpetual licenses, and enabled completely free on the 4 camera tier.
A Sustainable, Honest Licensing Model
When I stepped away, I paused commercial sales and removed license limits because I couldn't provide dedicated support.. but now that I'm back full-time leading development and answering support, we need a sustainable model to keep Bluecherry going for the long haul.
Bluecherry is open source.. and that one fact shapes our whole licensing philosophy. Anyone can inspect the code or remove a check if they really wanted to, so DRM only ever punishes paying customers. v4 licensing isn't copy protection; it's just an honest payment mechanism. v3 licensing treated every installation as suspect, while v4 assumes you're a customer.
Surveillance software should belong to you, not rented on a monthly subscription from a cloud vendor.. so we're keeping pricing simple and perpetual:
Simple, Transparent, Perpetual
A straightforward model that keeps your costs predictable and respects your ownership:
Completely free, perpetual license.. includes the full v4 stack, the new web UI, mobile client access, and upcoming smart detection. Stacks with paid licenses so you never lose your free cameras.
One-time perpetual purchase per additional camera beyond your first 4. No monthly subscriptions, no yearly renewals, and no cloud lock-in.
Existing installations can keep running their current setups.. and when you're ready to expand or upgrade to Version 4, the path is simple, affordable, and perpetual.
OUR LICENSING RULE
“A license problem should never stop recording that was already working.”
Bluecherry Licensing: What Changed from v3 to v4
In Version 3, licensing was built on a third-party commercial DRM toolkit with all the usual tradeoffs.. routine call-homes, machine fingerprint locks, and failure modes that ended up punishing paying users. For Version 4, we completely scrapped that system and rewrote licensing from scratch:
Phone-Home Sync & Telemetry
Routine license checks ran periodic server syncs against Cryptlex servers.. a network dropout, proxy change, or vendor outage meant unexpected licensing trouble on your end.
Zero calling home. Verification is local cryptographic math using an Ed25519 signature checked against pinned keys on disk.. the portal is only contacted when you explicitly click activate, reissue, or deactivate in the UI, and never in the recording path.
Failure Modes
An expired, suspended, or out-of-grace license failed the check immediately, stopping your system.
A missing or damaged license file keeps your last verified limit for 30 days while you sort it out.. only genuine tampering like a bad signature fails fast; portal metadata mistakes appear as warnings, never stopped cameras.
Active Recording Safety
Licensing disputes or errors risked disabling running camera streams.
Existing coverage is never held hostage.. if you are over the camera limit, the server simply refuses to start new cameras and explains why; but anything already recording keeps recording without interruption.
Permanent Ownership (No Remote Kill Switches)
Licenses carried embedded expiration dates and could be suspended remotely.
Truly perpetual.. licenses contain no expiry date and no remote suspension mechanism. When you purchase a license, it is yours permanently.
Free Forever, Plus a Real Demo
Offered an expiring 30-day trial with unlimited cameras, then a hard cliff to zero functioning feeds once it lapsed.
4 primary streams free forever, with no license key, no countdown, and no feature limits.. the free tier limits only the stream count. When you want to evaluate the full system, a one-time self-serve 30-day demo unlocks unlimited streams.. and when the demo ends, you land back on the free tier, not on zero.
Adding Cameras: Stacking vs. Resetting to Zero
One of the biggest complaints in v3 was that buying a license reset your camera count to zero.. buying a 4-camera license only gave you 4 cameras total, effectively wiping out the free cameras you were already using.
Your 4 free cameras stay yours forever and stack.. you only purchase licenses for additional cameras beyond four. An 8-camera setup costs just $40 (4 free + 4 paid at $10), and a 16-camera setup costs $120; you never forfeit your free cameras.
Docker Rebuilds & Major Upgrades
Node-locked to brittle machine hardware fingerprints and pinned to exact version strings.. hardware upgrades and container rebuilds frequently broke activation.
Server identity is a persistent keypair stored in a directory you mount as a Docker volume.. containers rebuild cleanly without re-activation, and upgrading past your major version begins a 30-day grace period instead of a cliff.
Air-Gapped & Isolated Networks
Required an active, outbound connection to third-party servers for every activation, trial request, and deactivation.
Built with air-gapped security networks in mind.. download a .bcreq request file, upload it from any web browser, and import the signed .lic file. Offline sites work completely.
Security & Open Source Transparency
Ran a proprietary, closed-source binary blob inside the server, communicated keys over plaintext local TCP, and produced cryptic numeric error codes.
The license verifier is completely open source in our repository.. keys are verified in-process, never logged or displayed beyond the last four characters, and diagnostic messages are written in plain, human-readable English.
Thank You
To everyone who kept running Bluecherry servers, submitted bug reports, helped others on the forums, contributed code, or sent encouragement while I was away.. thank you. Your continued support kept the community alive and gave me the drive to bring Bluecherry back.
I’m really glad to be back.. and I look forward to building what's next with all of you.
Ready to test Bluecherry v4?
Bluecherry v4 is currently in preview.. we're focusing on local vehicle and person detection right now, and we'd love to know what other detections or features are important to your setup. Join the preview to test early builds and get notified the moment downloads and perpetual license purchases go live.