Arlo vs Ring

Ring Solo is $4.99 a month (or $49.99 a year) for one device, and Ring Multi is $9.99 a month (or $99.99 a year) for all devices at one location. Both include up to 180 days of video history and person, package and vehicle alerts. Ring Pro, at $19.99 a month, adds 24/7 professional monitoring, Video Descriptions and Familiar Faces. Arlo’s Smart Aware plan is $9.99 a month for one camera or $19.99 for unlimited cameras, with 60-day video history. Smart Secure ($29.99) and Ultra Secure ($49.99) add threat assessment and professional monitoring, which require an Arlo Home Security System. Ultra Secure also adds continuous recording. Arlo says a plan isn’t required, but you need a separate plan for each address.

Ring sells add-ons on top of any plan: Pro Intelligence is $5 a month per camera, and 24/7 Continuous Recording is $3 a month per eligible camera ($6 to $18 on Elite models), with continuous recordings kept for up to 14 days. Ring Virtual Security Guard, where trained agents watch live video, is $99 a month. Ring says it doesn’t own its monitoring center, and professional installation starts at $129.99 per device. Arlo bundles more into its higher tiers instead: Ultra Secure ($49.99 a month or $479.88 a year) adds 24/7 continuous recording on up to three AC-powered cameras for 30 days, but those recordings can’t be downloaded. Arlo says annual billing saves up to $120 a year.

Arlo’s support documentation says most Arlo cameras can record to a USB drive (at least 16GB) when paired with an Arlo SmartHub or Base Station. The VMB5000 SmartHub uses a microSD slot instead. If your internet goes down, the camera keeps recording to the USB device. Only automatically triggered recordings are saved locally. Manual recordings go to the cloud only.

Ring offers optional video end-to-end encryption on most cameras, except some older models such as the original Video Doorbell (1st and 2nd Gen), Video Doorbell Wired, Stick Up Cam (1st and 2nd Gen), Spotlight Cam Battery (1st Gen), Peephole Cam and Car Cam. It needs iOS 17 or Android 9 or later and a 12-word passphrase. With it on, you lose Smart Alerts, Video Descriptions, Video Search, Familiar Faces, shared users, Alexa and Fire TV viewing, ring.com viewing and Virtual Security Guard, though 24/7 recording still works. The Verge^[7] notes that without E2EE, Ring can access footage while processing it for AI features, and that Search Party is on by default; Ring has cancelled a planned integration with Flock Safety.

Arlo doesn’t offer end-to-end encryption. It says videos are encrypted with AES-256 when stored and with TLS in transit, and that two-step verification is required. Arlo’s privacy pledge says it won’t share your videos with law enforcement without a warrant or court order and won’t use private videos to train its models without permission.

Skip Arlo if you mainly want a doorbell and one or two cameras on a budget: Ring Solo at $4.99 a month or Ring Multi at $9.99 is half the price for longer video history. Skip Ring if you don’t want your video processed in the cloud for AI features or want recordings kept on a drive at home; consider a camera that records locally with no plan, see our best security cameras without a subscription and Ring vs eufy. Skip both if you want a full monitored alarm system first and cameras second; compare SimpliSafe vs Ring Alarm and SimpliSafe vs ADT. For a cheaper camera ecosystem, see Wyze vs eufy.