Verkada and Roboflow

See everything on Verkada cameras with Roboflow

Verkada's built-in AI covers people, vehicles, faces, and license plates. Roboflow trains custom models on frames from those same cameras to catch everything else, from blocked exits and spills to missing parts, and runs them on hardware you choose.

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AI system identifies a pallet of boxes blocking a warehouse emergency exit, labeled 'exit_blocked 97%'.

Why are companies choosing Roboflow?

Roboflow is enterprise vision AI infrastructure, used by more than half of the Fortune 100, with SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, and air-gapped deployment. Over 2 million engineers use it to create datasets, train models, and deploy to production.

  • Chain models in Workflows

    Chain detection, tracking, OCR, and business logic on one drag-and-drop canvas, then trigger alerts or PLC actions from the same pipeline.

  • Control as you scale

    Choose the architecture, export the weights, and decide where every model runs, from one camera to every site.

  • Use the cameras you have

    Run custom models on your Verkada and other existing cameras, with no new hardware required.

Roboflow and Verkada for smarter security with computer vision

  • Real-Time Incident Detection

    Detect events or anomalies such as unauthorized access and safety incidents, with video surveillance and Roboflow’s models.

  • Custom Object Detection & Classification

    Train models to recognize employees wearing safety gear, inventory tracking, and product movements.

  • Enhanced Security

    Facial recognition in addition to recognizing visitor badges, employee uniforms, or unauthorized personnel.

OK I’m ready, how do I use Roboflow?

Roboflow makes it easy to build, train, and deploy custom computer vision models, even if you’re not a machine learning expert.

Start a free Roboflow account

Talk to a Vision AI engineer about custom AI on your Verkada cameras

Bring us what you need your cameras to see and we'll map a working solution on the first call.

Ask us about:

  • Solution architecture for your existing Verkada cameras
  • Custom models for tasks beyond people and vehicles
  • A live demo on your own camera footage
  • Deployment options: cloud, on-prem, edge, or air-gapped

Over 80,000 organizations build with Roboflow.

  • Rivian
  • Pella
  • Chobani
  • USG Corporation
  • BNSF Railway
  • American Woodmark
Start where you are

Compare Roboflow and Verkada

Verkada combines cloud-managed cameras with security analytics, search, and alerts. Roboflow adds models trained for your operation to those same camera feeds. Keep Verkada for security while your team builds applications for the products, equipment, and processes specific to your business.

Connect supported Verkada cameras to Roboflow Inference through local RTSP streams. Use images from your own site to train models for pallet counting, PPE checks, blocked aisles, or equipment states. Auto Label (opens in a new tab) can draft annotations from a text prompt describing your classes, giving your team a starting point to review and refine.

Roboflow Agent helps turn those models into applications with Workflows. For example, detect a pallet, check whether it overlaps a marked exit zone, and send an alert with the image and location. Your engineers control the detection model, zone rules, and downstream action. Through MCP or the ChatGPT plugin (opens in a new tab), they can also prepare datasets, launch training, and test predictions.

Run custom models on a Jetson or server on the camera’s local network, and download supported weights to retain control over deployment. Roboflow’s free plan includes private projects, supported weight downloads, self-hosted inference, and 10 monthly credits. Enterprise options add device management and implementation support for deployments across sites, extending the value of the cameras you already own.

Verkada vs Roboflow: Feature by Feature

FeatureRoboflowVerkada
Form factorSoftware platform; runs on the cameras and compute you choose, or the Roboflow AI1 deviceHardware plus cloud licensesCameras, access control, alarms, and sensors managed in Verkada Command
Built-in security AIPre-trained models on Roboflow Universe for people, vehicles, PPE, and moreYes, people and vehicle detection, face search, license plate recognition, and natural-language search and alerts
Vision tasksObject detection, instance and semantic segmentation, classification, keypoints, OCR, depth estimation, and multimodal tasksSecurity-focused; people and vehicle detection, face search, license plate recognition, and activity detection such as slip-and-fall and climbing
Detect your own objects and defectsYes, train on your own images for any object, defect, or equipment statePrompt-based; natural-language alerts run on Verkada's models; customer model training not documented
Camera supportAny RTSP, USB, GigE, or industrial camera, including Verkada cameras over local RTSPVerkada cameras; third-party ONVIF and RTSP cameras through a Command Connector appliance, with limited AI search support
Choose your model architectureYes, RF-DETR, YOLO (v8 / v11 / v26), Detectron2, and moreNot documented
Export and own model weightsYesNot documented
Where AI runsManaged cloud, customer VPC, on-premises, or fully air-gapped on NVIDIA Jetson, GPU servers, or Roboflow AI1On the camera and in Verkada's cloud; managed only through Command
Application logicVisual Workflows; chain detection, tracking, OCR, counting, and PLC output without codeAlerts and webhooks in Command, plus Helix for pairing third-party data with footage
Sub-agents for frontier models (MCP)Yes, every trained model is exposed over MCP so frontier models can call it as a specialized vision toolNot documented
API and SDKYes, Python SDK, REST API, MCP server, open-source inference and supervisionYes, REST API, webhooks, HLS Streaming API, and Helix
Local RTSP video streamsYes, the open-source inference server runs custom and foundation models on RTSP streams from NVIDIA Jetson, GPU servers, Raspberry Pi, and x86 hardware, online or fully offlineYes, local RTSP can be switched on per camera in Command; streams stay on the local network, and most models allow 2 concurrent streams
ComplianceSOC 2 Type II, HIPAA with BAAs, PCI DSSSOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP Moderate, HIPAA as a Business Associate

Best Verkada Alternatives

Roboflow is the top Verkada alternative, or add-on, for teams that want custom models running on the cameras they already have. Teams comparing Verkada also look at:

Explore Roboflow for Security Cameras

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