Bluecherry is now completely free, no more licensing.
Dear Bluecherry community,
After many years of development, support, and running Bluecherry as a small business, the time has come to close the commercial side of the project. This was not an easy decision, but it’s one I feel is best for ensuring that Bluecherry continues in a way that is sustainable and accessible to everyone.
What’s changing:
- Bluecherry is no longer offered as a paid product (donations are accepted!)
- All features are now free and open source under the GPL license.
- There will be no more licensing fees, no purchase requirements, and no restrictions on camera counts.
What’s staying the same:
- The software itself lives on through the community and improvements as time allows.
- Clients for Linux, Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android remain available from our downloads page and client releases.
- Our community is still active — join us on the forums or in Discord.
👉Donate links:
More release notes about v3.1.14
Install 'rrdtool' (apt install rrdtool) to use the new monitoring system in the Bluecherry admin
This release contains critical fixes for segmentation faults, database stability, and performance issues affecting large installations.
🔧 Critical Fixes
- Segmentation Fault Prevention: Comprehensive null pointer protection in recording and streaming systems
- Database Stability: Fix critical PHP mysqli connection bugs causing fatal errors
- HLS Cleanup: Prevent race conditions and resource leaks during service destruction
- Thread Safety: Add mutex timeout protection and safe thread cleanup to prevent server lockups
- Database Timeouts: Implement proper timeout handling to avoid endless loops and hangs
🎯 Key Improvements
- Audio Stream Validation: Robust validation for TP-Link and other cameras with problematic audio streams
- Database Sync: Automatic database/filesystem synchronization to prevent disk fill issues
- Missing Recordings: Script to scan and add missing recordings after VM restores
- Modern Stats API: Replace fragile XML-based stats with robust JSON API
- Monitoring: Enhanced system monitoring with real-time charts and metrics
📦 Package Dependencies
- rrdtool: Added to Debian package dependencies for system monitoring
- bluecherry: Updated package with all critical fixes
⚠️ Important Installation Notes
Users must install rrdtool and update bluecherry package:
# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt update
sudo apt install rrdtool
sudo apt install bluecherry
🔄 Migration Notes
- License system has been removed - this is now a free and open source release
- Database schema updated for better performance and stability
- All existing configurations and recordings are preserved
📋 Full Changelog
See the detailed commit history for complete technical details of all fixes and improvements.
🆘 Support
For issues or questions, please check the documentation or open an issue on GitHub."