SHSelfHostIndex

mjpg-streamer vs uStreamer

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted video surveillance options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
MJ mjpg-streamer Stream JPEG frames from webcams over HTTP VS US uStreamer Lightweight MJPEG streamer for USB and CSI cameras
Featuremjpg-streameruStreamer
CategoryVideo SurveillanceVideo Surveillance
LicenseGPL-2.0GPL-3.0
LanguageCC
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM64 MB64 MB
Deploymentbinary, sourcebinary, source
GitHub stars★ 3,246★ 2,021
First released20132018
ReplacesWebcam streaming servicesmjpg-streamer

Why pick each one

Choose mjpg-streamer if…

  • Released under the GPL-2.0 license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Active community (3.2k GitHub stars)
  • Written in C
mjpg-streamer details

Choose uStreamer if…

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Active community (2k GitHub stars)
  • Written in C
uStreamer details

Frequently asked questions

Is mjpg-streamer or uStreamer better?

Neither is universally better. mjpg-streamer has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are mjpg-streamer and uStreamer free and open-source?

Yes. mjpg-streamer is licensed under GPL-2.0 and uStreamer under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run mjpg-streamer and uStreamer with Docker?

mjpg-streamer: check the project docs for container support. uStreamer: check the project docs for container support.

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