so is it OpenALPR or nothing?
a quick google shows about others that are free but I am assuming these have been tried and failed. Correct ?
There are several other companies specializing in LPR software, but they are either strictly focused on government / corporate customers, or they just don't work as well. Mt. Juliet, a town just to the east of me, is currently installing a city-wide LPR system. They chose Rekor (i.e. OpenALPR) after an open bid period when they invited different vendors to demonstrate the capabilities of their software. One of the Mt. Juliet officers did an interview afterwards where he basically said that Rekor was head and shoulders above the competition, both in accuracy and responsiveness (i.e. how quickly alerts were received by officers when a test plate was scanned), and that it was pretty much of a no-brainer to award the contract to them.
Rekor has also continued to develop and update their software, plus they are a US-based company (very important to a lot of customers). In my experience, their updates to the OpenALPR agent have significantly improved its performance over the past 18 months. I personally consider $5 / month / camera to be well spent for long-term support of home ALPR.
The wild card is that companies like Dahua and Hikvision are now bringing AI cameras to market with ALPR built in. It isn't clear to me if those systems provide email or text alerts, plus Chinese companies don't have much reputation for timely software support, but the trend is certainly there. In time we're probably going to see $200 to $300 dollar cameras from Ring, Nest, Wyze, etc., that will record license plates.