Blink vs Ring – Which Brand Offers Better Security Cameras?

Bottom Line

• Both Amazon companies, Ring and Blink offer cameras that integrate well with Alexa.
• Affordability is Blink’s strong suit; Ring’s is tech and features, as shown in our review of the high-tech Spotlight Cam.
• Cloud subscriptions for both brands are affordable. Blink starts at $2.50 per month with an annual subscription; Ring starts at $4.16 per month with an annual plan.

Ring and Blink are both owned by Amazon, but these two home security brands target different audiences. Ring offers a wider range of premium home security equipment but at slightly higher prices than Blink. On the other hand, Blink offers fewer options, but they’re known for their tremendous value mainly because of their low price points.

From that alone, you can probably already tell which one will work out better for you. But if you want to go into the details, this comparison guide will help. We’ve tested security cameras from both Blink and Ring. We even compared them side by side, living with cameras from both brands in our home. Ring came out as the better option overall, but we believe there are reasons to pick either brand. Let’s zoom in!

Overview

Ring has four types of security cameras available for sale:

• Ring Indoor Cam
• Ring Outdoor Cam
• Ring Spotlight Cam
• Ring Floodlight Cam

Both the Outdoor and Spotlight cameras are available as battery-powered, solar-powered, or hardwired. The Indoor Cam and Floodlight Cam are only available as plug-in, while the Floodlight Cam can be hardwired to your electrical system. There are also Pro versions of the Outdoor, Spotlight, and Floodlight Cams that upgrade their motion detection, video quality, and two-way audio.

With Blink, each camera type is either battery-powered or hardwired. Some battery cameras can be powered using a solar panel. Blink also doesn’t have as many accessory options as Ring.

Here are the four camera types from Blink:

• Blink Mini
• Blink Mini Pan-Tilt
• Blink Outdoor
• Blink Wired Floodlight Camera

The most noticeable difference between Blink and Ring is that Blink security cameras are more affordable. The plugged-in Blink Mini Pan-Tilt is just $40, whereas the Ring equivalent, the Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam, is $60. The battery-powered cameras are more expensive but still cheaper than Ring.

It’s hard to find the other differences between Blink and Ring until testing each provider. Then, the reasons Ring charges a premium start to show. For instance, Ring’s mobile app is much easier to use. We also found the build quality of Ring’s cameras to exceed Blink. And the person, package, and vehicle detection is more accurate.

Key Similarities

It’s inevitable; despite offering vastly different security camera lineups, Blink and Ring have lots of similarities, from how their equipment is set up to how they are monitored.

• No Contracts: Monthly subscriptions are not obligatory for either Blink or Ring. If you sign up for a cloud recording plan like we did, you won’t need to sign a contract and you can cancel anytime.
• Easy DIY Installation: Aside from each brand’s floodlight camera models, installing a Blink or Ring camera doesn’t take more than 10 minutes. All we had to do was pick out a spot for the camera and then follow the instructions on the app.

• Indoor/Outdoor Cameras: Blink and Ring both offer some of the best indoor cameras and outdoor cameras in the industry with several models to choose from.
• Mobile App: While it’s standard for modern security cameras, Blink and Ring both offer good quality mobile apps to control our cameras and view recordings remotely. We also used the app to trigger the camera’s siren.
• Affordable Cloud Storage: Although not required, Ring and Blink both offer affordable cloud storage plans with Blink’s plans starting at $2.50 per month and Ring’s plans starting at $4.16 per month.

Key Differences

It’s not surprising these two brands have a lot of similarities given that they are both owned by Amazon. But, when deciding between two providers, the differences become the deciding factors. Here are the key differences between Ring and Blink:

• Professional Monitoring: Most providers only offer monitoring for sensor-based alerts. Ring offers a premium monitoring plan for their security cameras as well as standard professional monitoring. Blink offers neither.
• Cloud-Based vs. Local Storage: Both offer affordable cloud plans, but a recurring expense is something you might want to avoid. Blink offers local storage options through their Sync Module that you can use without a subscription. Accessing Ring’s local storage option in their Alarm Pro base station requires a subscription.
• Battery Life: The battery-powered Blink cameras we tested last up to two years on non-rechargeable AA lithium batteries. That’s a lot longer than the three to six month battery life of Ring cameras, but the Ring batteries are rechargeable. For us, that meant we didn’t need to swap out the batteries in our TV remote when our camera battery died.

Camera Selections

Now that we know what Ring and Blink are about, let’s start breaking down their respective features. For that, we’ll take a close-up look at what each brand offers in terms of hardware, installation, recording options and so on. Of course, if you want a more detailed review, always feel free to visit our Ring camera review and Blink review.

Blink’s Options

We chose our assortment of Blink equipment based on our home’s specific needs. First, we purchased a Blink Sync Module, which is required, acting as a base station and local storage for up to 10 Blink cameras. We then selected our combination of Blink cameras, which was the Blink Mini 2 and Blink Outdoor 4.

The Blink Outdoor 4 impressed us with its person detection feature. Budget outdoor cameras under $100 normally send alerts for any motion they see which riddles our phone with false alerts. Blink incorporated computer vision algorithms in the Outdoor 4 so we only got alerts when it detected a person in our front yard instead of every time the neighborhood cat wanders by.

Our Mini 2 couldn’t tell the difference between our dog and people in our house, so we got more alerts with it. But, we used our Mini 2 as a pet cam. That way, we wanted to get those alerts every time our dog walked past our camera.

>> Learn More: Blink Indoor Camera Review 2025

Ring’s Options

While there are four main Ring camera models, they each have variations including Plus, Pro or Elite models as well as different power options. That lets them accommodate almost anyone’s needs without creating a confusing catalogue like we see from Lorex.

That big lineup of models is why we’re glad that they don’t require a Sync Module like Blink. Ring’s cameras connect directly to the Wi-Fi which is why they can’t compete with Blink’s battery life, but it makes the system more scalable. You can add more Ring cameras without worrying about if you’re hitting your limit.

The big benefit with Ring’s options, though, is their full security system called Ring Alarm. When we tested Ring Alarm, we added professional monitoring to our Ring Home plan so professionals could handle our alerts. Blink doesn’t offer any sensors or professional monitoring, so we had to make sure we were ready to respond to alerts 24/7.

Winner: Ring

>> Read More: Ring Home Security Camera Reviews 2025

Installation

All of the cameras from both Blink and Ring are made for DIY installation. In our experience, these cameras took two to five minutes to set up and install. Only the floodlight cameras from both brands and Ring’s wired doorbells required a bit of handiwork because they must be hardwired into your electrical system.

Blink

We were able to get both of our Blink cameras set up in about 10 minutes. That’s slightly longer than it took us for Ring since we needed to set up our Sync Module 2. It wasn’t difficult.

Basically, we connected the Sync Module 2 to our Wi-Fi then connected it to the mobile app. From there, we just needed to add each of our cameras in the mobile app to connect them to the Sync Module 2. Then all we had to do was pop in the batteries and either use the included mounting kit to attach our cameras to wall or plop them on a side table.

Ring

Our installation for the Ring cameras was somewhat similar to that of Blink. Once we downloaded the Ring app, we selected “set up a device” and “security cameras.” Then, all we had to do to connect our cameras to the app was to scan the QR code on the back or in the battery compartment of our cameras.

This went quicker than our Blink setup because we didn’t have a Sync module acting as the middleman. That’s why when we tested the Ring Outdoor Cam (previously known as the Stick Up Cam), we connected it to the 2.4 GHz band of our dual-band Wi-Fi router. It’s slightly slower than the 5 GHz band, but it’s better at penetrating walls giving our outdoor cameras a stronger signal.1

Winner: Ring

Features

A security camera’s features can make or break it. They might seem just like fun extras when shopping around, but when a camera can’t tell the difference between a falling leaf and a person so you get inundated with false alerts, the importance of some key features that we’ll discuss here becomes clear.

Blink

To cut to the chase, every feature that Blink offers is also available from Ring cameras aside from their long two-year battery life. But, if Blink offers all the features you need, they offer them for a lot less than Ring. Here’s a quick overview of Blink’s main features:

• 1080p HD Resolution: Full HD resolution is the minimum we look for as it provides a clear enough image to identify a face up close or read a license plate in our driveway if the camera’s mounted above our garage.
• Night Vision: All Blink cameras offer infrared night vision, which provides a black and white image, with the Blink Wired Floodlight offering color night vision.
• Person Detection: The new Blink Outdoor 4 offers person detection capabilities which allows you to filter out alerts from pets and cars passing by the camera. We consider this an essential feature as when we test cameras without it we get too many alerts to give each one the attention it deserves.
• Alexa Integration: As an Amazon-owned brand, it’s no surprise that our Blink cameras integrated with our Alexa devices, like the Amazon Echo Show we were testing at the same time.
• Two-Way Audio: Every Blink camera is fitted with a small microphone and speaker to enable two-way audio. We found the audio quality to be good enough, but Ring’s Audio+ feature provides noticeably clearer audio.

>> Read About: Best Night Vision Cameras of 2025

Ring

All those features we listed for Blink are available on every Ring security camera. They offer a few more premium features as well, though, including:

• 2K Resolution: Ring’s Pro camera models upgrade that 1080p HD resolution to 2K. That provides almost double the pixels which allowed us to zoom in on footage twice as much before it got blurry.
• Package and Vehicle Alerts: On top of person detection, Ring’s cameras can also identify packages and vehicles for more descriptive alerts.
• Built-In Siren: The Spotlight and Floodlight Cams come with a built-in siren that can be triggered remotely from the app. We use this for everything from scaring off raccoons tearing up our yard to notifying lurkers that they should move along.
• HDR Video: Even Ring’s 1080p cameras offer clearer video than Blink cameras largely because of their HDR support. HDR stands for high dynamic range which allows the camera to handle glare and other lighting inconsistencies for a clearer image.
• Wider Field of View: Most Ring cameras also offer a wider field of view than Blink’s cameras allowing them to see more area in front of them. This allowed us to cover more of our property with fewer cameras.

We consider these useful features, but not essential ones. Blink offers enough to provide functional cameras that’ll fit most people’s needs. That said, Ring’s features add an extra touch we would miss if we went back to Blink cameras after testing both.

Winner: Ring

Storage

Both Ring and Blink offer cloud storage options, but only Blink comes with local storage.

Blink

With a local storage option through the Sync Module, we weren’t required to sign up for a monthly cloud subscription to record video clips. We used a MicroSD card we had from an old digital camera for local storage, but you can use a USB drive too. Then, since the Sync Module was connected to the app, we could view and manage our recordings from our phone.

However, if we wanted the Blink Outdoor 4’s person detection capabilities, we’d have to subscribe to one of their cloud storage plans. We opted for their one camera plan even though we were testing a Blink Mini as well since our main reason for subscribing was to unlock the person detection which is not available in the Blink Mini anyways. Here’s a quick overview of Blink’s cloud subscription plans:

Ring

To store video footage from Ring cameras, you need a subscription. Even if you have a Ring Alarm Pro system with local storage, they still require a subscription to use it. They also lock behind the majority of their camera features behind their subscriptions, too. Here’s how much Ring’s subscriptions cost:

We went with the Ring Home Standard plan since it unlocks most of Ring’s features for all of their cameras. The Basic plan only supports one camera and the Premium plan adds some advanced features like continuous recording and backup internet which allows your cameras to keep sending footage to the cloud even if your Wi-Fi goes down.

Winner: Blink

Monitoring

Of course, you can self-monitor Blink and Ring cameras. Only Ring offers professional monitoring, but it comes with a few considerations. We’ll go over it all so you can pick the right monitoring option for you.

Blink

Keeping with Blink’s budget-friendly ethos, their cameras are meant to be self monitored and that’s the only option they offer. We definitely recommend either getting a micro SD card or USB drive for local storage, or subscribing to a cloud storage plan, though, so you can review footage from the day if you miss an alert.

Ring

You get more flexibility with Ring. They offer professional monitoring for a $10 monthly fee added to the Ring Home Standard or Premium plan. However, this addition only includes monitoring for their Ring Alarm system and sensors. This plan does include video verification. That means Ring’s monitoring agents will verify alarms by checking the live feed on your cameras so they can dispatch emergency personnel faster.

For active monitoring of your Ring cameras, you’ll need to add the $99 per month Virtual Security Guard addition to the Ring Home Standard or Premium plans. With this plan, you tell Ring when you want their monitoring agents to actively monitor your video feed for threats. We only recommend this plan for businesses.

Winner: Ring

>> Check Out: Best Security Cameras for Businesses in 2025

Apps

We use the associated mobile app for our security cameras all the time. Blink and Ring were no exception. Needless to say, we got a lot of experience with both provider’s apps. Here’s what we thought of Ring and Blink’s apps.

Blink’s App

We’re used to cheap security cameras coming with cheap apps, but Blink is the exception. Their app has an intuitive layout that makes it just as easy to check the livestream of your cameras as it is to check your video recordings whether stored in the cloud or locally on your Sync Module.

The only difficulty we experienced was the app kept asking us if we were still watching when reviewing clips. That got annoying, but is by no means a deal-breaker since all we had to do was tap yes to make the notification go away.

Ring’s App

With more features comes a mobile app that’s slightly more complicated. There are more menus to navigate through to take full advantage of your Ring cameras, but we never felt overwhelmed.

We particularly like how Ring lets us set the sensitivity level of our cameras. That way, we could fine tune them so they only sent us alerts when we wanted them. When testing the Ring Indoor Cam, we also used the privacy zones feature so we could have it ignore particular areas in our home.

Winner: Ring

Our Take: Blink vs. Ring

After breaking Blink and Ring down by category, we determined Ring’s the winner with a score of five to one. They offer more options, higher quality cameras, better services, and professional monitoring.

But, we get it. Ring’s prices can make them inaccessible to some people. And in those cases, Blink gets the job done. They offer all the core features we look for in a security camera at affordable rates. Plus, their local storage options let you avoid monthly fees entirely while still being able to record clips.

To learn about our recommendations for brands other than Blink and Ring, check out our best home security camera review page.