DS cam vs Amcrest Cloud
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
DS cam
Monitor and receive alerts from your Synology surveillance cameras. Control PTZ, patrols, and lens functions in real-time. Easily filter recordings and manage essential tasks like disabling cameras or deleting snapshots.
- Real-time camera monitoring
- Alert notifications
- PTZ, patrol, and lens control
- Advanced recording filters
- Essential management tasks
- Snapshot management
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You must own a Synology NAS or NVR to run this app, and be running the latest Surveillance Station to get the complete set of features. DS cam makes it possible to monitor and receive alert notifications from all your surveillance cameras set up on a Synology DiskStation. Smart features such as PTZ, patrols or lens control allow for perfect control of your cameras in real-time, while advanced filters make it easy to pinpoint any specific event from large lists of recordings. You can even perform all essential management tasks, from disabling a camera to unlocking and deleting a snapshot. Find all detailed features about the app on our website: www.synology.com > Solutions > Surveillance > Surveillance Mobile > Specifications https://www.synology.com/dsm/7.2/software_spec/surveillance_station
Amcrest Cloud
This AI-powered cloud service provides advanced video monitoring for IP cameras. It offers cloud storage, motion detection alerts, and sophisticated object detection for enhanced security.
- AI-powered cloud service
- Cloud storage
- Motion detection alerts
- People, vehicle, animal detection
- Camera health checks
- 4K model support
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Amcrest Cloud is an AI-powered cloud service designed to work exclusively with the Amcrest line of IP cameras, including the latest 4K models. The service is a premium cloud video monitoring platform designed for the home and small business and includes cloud storage, advanced camera health checks, motion detection alerts and more! The Cloud AI module enables world class people, vehicle, animal and objection detection to power your cloud surveillance.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Amcrest Cloud at 4.2 against DS cam's 3.0. Amcrest Cloud also leads on ratings volume (5.9K vs 172) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.0). DS cam's advantage is monetization model (free vs freemium) and review sentiment (32% vs 20%). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Amcrest Cloud holds the better App Store score, 4.2 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Amcrest Cloud has 5.9K ratings behind it against 172, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 32% of DS cam's written reviews are positive against 20% of Amcrest Cloud's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 8, 2026 and October 15, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | DS cam | Amcrest Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.0 (172 ratings) | 4.2 (5.9K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 31.8% of reviews — better | 20.1% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 172 | 5.9K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 4 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 85 MB | 61 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Synology Inc. | Amcrest |
Customer experience
DS cam
Amcrest Cloud
User reviews
DS cam
From 172 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Works great
- 👍 Good and useful app
- 🚀 Fast and stable
- 👍 Completely control camera recordings
- 👍 Toggle through events easily
Room to improve
- 🐛 Regular app crashing
- 🐛 Crashes frequently
- 🐛 Cannot scroll back in timeline without issues
- 🐛 Event viewer rarely works
- 🐛 Slow and clunky
Amcrest Cloud
From 5.9K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- ⭐ Great camera
- 👍 Easy to set up
- 🚀 Very high resolution picture
- 🚀 Great performance in the app
- 🚀 No streaming latency
Room to improve
- 🐛 No video recorded despite motion detection
- 🐛 Cannot connect to WiFi
- 🐛 Will not record to SD card
- 🤔 Confusing app
- 🤔 Cannot add more cameras
Bugs and requests
DS cam
Reported bugs
16 issues- Regular app crashing
- Cannot scroll back in timeline without issues
- Event viewer rarely works
- Keeps buffering
- Crashes constantly
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- Battery drain
- Push notifications not reliable
- Cannot click on push notifications
- Cannot download h265 videos
- Notifications missing thumbnails
- Slow login process
- Loses remembered connections
- Slow to connect
- Notifications stopped working
- Crashes iPhone 14 Pro
- Incompatible with older Surveillance Station versions
Requested features
11 requests- Selective motion notifications
- Custom notification sounds
- Ability to categorize alerts
- Live scrubbing on timeline
- Bookmarks and advanced filtering
Show 6 moreShow fewer
- Ability to download h265 videos
- Faster login process
- Ability to retain remembered connections
- Apple TV app
- Dark mode for all screens
- Ability to quickly switch between cameras
Amcrest Cloud
Reported bugs
6 issues- Camera firmware update bricking cameras
- Inability to connect cameras to WiFi
- Cameras disconnecting from cloud
- App login issues
- Inability to change detection zones
Show 1 moreShow fewer
- Notifications not working
Requested features
2 requests- Multiple saved camera locations
- Ability to view more than 4 hours of recordings
In-app purchases
DS cam
No in-app purchases
Amcrest Cloud
No in-app purchases
