You can self host Protect. It’s what I did for ages when I was using a few of their cameras. Don’t have to use cloud unless you want to.

There’s a lot of downsides to ubiquiti (I’ve been dunking on them all over this thread) but there’s a LOT of great stuff too, and being able to self-host their management suite if you choose to do so is GREAT. That doesn’t make me want to invest in their walled garden for cameras, but for people who want to get into a functional ecosystem they’re a great choice. Overall the price:performance curve is not worth it to me, though, but neither are apple products, even though I know they work well also.

Their support for ONVIF is, as you said, limited. Being able to add a camera into your protect feed is a good start, but until they make it work better for PTZ, audio, sub stream capture, and everything else it’s not worth note IMO.

RTSP allows you to check a live feed in another software suite (even just VLC) but again, without the cameras themselves being ONVIF standard you’re missing all the aforementioned features and now you’re really REALLY overpaying for what is essentially a dumb camera.

I’ve experimented with ubiquiti cameras and for the most part I find them very overpriced for their quality point. They’re good cameras, but they’re not ONVIF compatible so if you want to get into their (super overpriced and limited) ecosystem you won’t be able to intermix other cameras easily.

A good example is their doorbell camera. It’s just not good. And they don’t have more than one model, so if you want a good one you’re buying something else, that won’t work in their software, so now you’re using two systems to watch your cameras.

I’m glad they work for you, but I don’t recommend getting into their camera ecosystem.