esp32cam-rtsp

esp32cam-rtsp turns a cheap ESP32-CAM board into a network camera. Flash this firmware onto the chip and it serves a live video stream over RTSP (the protocol VLC and most CCTV recorders speak), plus a browser-viewable Motion JPEG feed and still-image snapshots, all configured through a built-in web page. It supports a wide range of ESP32-CAM variants, from the common AI Thinker board to M5Stack and Seeed XIAO modules.

Running it means real hardware work. You compile and upload with PlatformIO, put the board into download mode to flash it, then connect to its setup access point to enter WiFi and camera settings. From there it exposes brightness, contrast, exposure, and gain controls. Once flashed it just runs, but the initial bring-up assumes you're comfortable with embedded toolchains and finicky USB flashing.

Solo tinkerers and small teams building a DIY camera or a vision project: this is a clean, well-supported way to do it for the price of a board. Large teams: fine for prototypes, not for anything needing fleet management or security guarantees.

The catch: the repo declares no license, so "open source" is doing a lot of work here. The code is public and free to use, but without a stated license your legal right to redistribute or build a product on it is unclear. For a weekend project that's irrelevant. For anything commercial, ask the maintainer before you ship.