If you are farting around at home then cheap Chinese cameras are fine. Where Axis shines is in long term reliability, not fabricating their spec sheets and their after-sales support. It was only a couple of years ago we were seeing 10% failure rates on Hik cameras, and they are supposed to be top of the Chinese pile.
We saw a manufacturing defect with a batch of Axis cameras. Once identified, Axis not only shipped replacement cameras direct to the clients sites (and there were a couple of hundred of those across Australia), but they then paid for a tech to go to each site and replace and re-configure the cameras. That's standing by your product and a level of support you have to pay for. Cheap Chinese cameras don't come close to the long term reliability and quality of established brands like that yet. I'm sure they'll get there, but my experience with Hik official tech support has been bad enough that I would not let them near any of my clients. With Chinese cameras you absorb the cost difference (or more) on your first service call, so you pay more up front for a reliable product and a manufacturer that stands behind it.
An example is the recent security vulnerability with Axis gear. You know that when you upgrade the firmware to fix that vulnerability you won't break the camera because they actually test and QA their firmware properly. The release notes are comprehensive and accurate, and they don't spend more time screwing their clients and region locking than fixing the firmware. You pay for that quality.
Of course, as I said for those farting around at home, sure use cheap Chinese cameras. I certainly won't be specifying them any time soon for real work though.
My comments stand as well for Axis as most of the established brands (Axis, Bosch, March Networks, Indigo Vision, Panasonic, Pelco, Samsung.. and so on). There's a reason they are more expensive. Quality and performance.