I've always been a fan of iSpy (https://www.ispyconnect.com/) and still occasionally mess with it even though my couple of cheapo cameras (a Foscam and a Dahua) now just record on motion to my Synology NAS.
I think I messed with Blue Iris when I was initially playing with using an old laptop as an IP cam DVR but never bought it after the trial expired.
Looks like to get the most out of iSpy you need a subscription, starting at $8 per month and going up to $50 per month, sorry no thanks. Blue Iris is a one time fee, I get SMS and email alerts included. I don't like paying subscriptions for things that I'm hosting myself.
Sorry for the late reply. I never used any of the "pro" options so I guess it never came up for me. It's like Plex in that regard, at least how I personally use it. I just use iSpy as a free, flexible program I can run on an old computer, attach it to the same LAN as the IP cameras, and set it up for motion detection, recording, and storage/archive.
I definitely agree that if you want some or all of the "premium" features, a one time purchase is the only option. I don't like recurring subscriptions and avoid them when possible. I guess in this case, since you're paying for functionality on their servers it makes sense to pay as you use it. Still, as an end user, I do avoid subscriptions if I can.
Good to know you've got a better option though. Anything that allows you to self-host this stuff (mostly at least) is a positive thing IMO. In my early experiments before moving to the Synology software on my NAS, I had the computer running iSpy save to the Dropbox folder on that computer and limited the archive size to match the capacity of that Dropbox account. That way I could at least access recordings from elsewhere but I never got into email or SMS alerts. Not sure how I'd personally set that up.
Any other suggestions?