Openpath Alternatives in 2026: What the Avigilon Rebrand Changed

TL;DR

• Openpath was acquired by Motorola Solutions and is now sold as Avigilon Alta, with its access control platform continuing under the new brand.
• For existing customers, the rebrand changed the name, branding and support resources, but existing hardware and active services were not discontinued or materially changed by the transition.
• This page compares five systems: Coram, Avigilon Alta, Brivo, Verkada, and UniFi Access, in that order.
• The question that actually decides the choice is not which system scores highest on a feature checklist; it is what you want running alongside the doors (access control alone, or a wider platform that also runs video, visitor management and emergency response).

What Happened to Openpath?

Openpath was acquired by Motorola Solutions and is now sold as Avigilon Alta. The rebrand brought Openpath under the Avigilon name, but the access control platform remains available to organizations evaluating or already using it.

Avigilon confirms that "Openpath access control has been rebranded under the Avigilon name, but many of the same or similar products are still available." In other words, Openpath access control was not discontinued and it now sits within Avigilon Alta's product portfolio.

For IT teams reviewing their access control contracts, the distinction matters: a change in brand does not automatically mean a need to replace the installed system. The practical question is whether the current setup still meets the organization's needs for credentials, integrations, administration and the systems that work alongside its doors.

The key distinction for an IT director is that Openpath alternatives are worth evaluating because of changing requirements, not because the original product has disappeared.

What the Rebrand Actually Changed for Existing Customers

Two things changed when Openpath became Avigilon Alta, and they are worth separating.

The first is surface-level: the brand name, the app name, the support routing, and the documentation URLs are now Avigilon. If you log into what used to be the Openpath dashboard, you are logging into Avigilon Alta. Those are real changes that a current customer encounters, and they are worth knowing about.

The second change is structural. Openpath was a standalone cloud access control company. Avigilon Alta is a product line inside Motorola Solutions' broader physical security portfolio. That is a different operating context, and the product now sits alongside Avigilon cameras, video analytics, and other Motorola lines. What that means for your organization depends on whether you want access control on its own or a system that works alongside video and other security tools.

What did not change: the hardware on your wall. The readers, wiring, and door controllers that shipped under the Openpath name continue to function. A rebrand does not touch installed equipment, and nothing about your physical access control behavior changed because of it.

That makes a renewal a reasonable time to evaluate Openpath access control alternatives, even if your current setup is working well. The point is not that Avigilon Alta is going away; it is that your next contract is an opportunity to check whether the platform still fits your requirements.

Before ruling out a switch as too disruptive, find out which installed components a new system can support and which parts of the setup would actually need replacing.

Most decision makers overestimate what switching access control actually costs. In most installations, the readers, locks, and cabling stay in place. What changes is the panel and the software platform above it. That is a narrower scope than a full rip-and-replace, and it is worth knowing before you decide the switching cost is too high to bother.

How to Evaluate a Cloud Access Control System

Most vendor pages for cloud access control read the same way: a list of features, a handful of integrations, and a request demo button. They are not built to help you compare systems but to end the comparison. The criteria that actually separate one system from another are rarely foregrounded, because vendors benefit from buyers who are not sure what to ask.

The more useful questions are about hardware capacity, credential compatibility, integration depth and the work your team will need to manage across systems.

The differences become clearer when you look beyond the feature checklist. One system might connect a badge event directly to recorded video, while another requires your team to investigate the access log and camera footage separately. One controller may handle several doors, while another covers fewer. These details affect how you plan for expansion, investigate incidents and manage access across multiple sites.

Start with your existing environment, too. If you are considering a move from Openpath access control to Avigilon Alta or another platform, establish which readers, locks and cables can remain, and whether your current credential setup will work with the replacement.

Then look at what sits around the door system. Your team may need access control to work alongside cameras, visitor management and emergency response, or you may prefer separate tools with clearly defined responsibilities.

Finally, look at the ongoing commercial arrangement, not just the initial hardware quote. Licensing can be structured in different ways, and the recurring costs matter when you are budgeting across sites and planning renewals. If you want a ranked comparison of the wider market before narrowing your shortlist, our guide to enterprise access control systems covers that broader evaluation.

So, before you talk to any vendor, know what you are walking in to ask. The six criteria worth examining before you compare vendors:

• Controller coverage: Understand exactly how many doors one controller unit manages, and what additional hardware you need when the site grows beyond that capacity. Adding doors means adding panels, and the cost and complexity of that varies significantly across systems.
• Credential specifics: Ask each vendor which credential types are supported today, including cards, fobs, mobile access and PINs, and which are on a roadmap, because this is the category where vendor marketing is least precise and where the answer most directly affects what your employees carry.
• Video relationship: Establish whether camera integration is native to the platform or a third-party connection, because native means a badge event automatically surfaces the matching clip, while an integration means someone is correlating two systems manually during an incident.
• What carries over: Confirm which components from your current installation transfer to the new system (readers, locks and cabling generally do, third-party panels often do not) before anyone quotes you a project cost.
• Platform scope: Decide whether you want emergency response, visitor management, and cameras on the same platform as your doors, or whether access control as a standalone product is the right fit for how your team operates.
• Licensing structure: Get clarity on what fee recurs annually (per door, per user, per site, or a flat fee), how it is calculated and which features or components it covers, because the recurring line determines total cost of ownership more reliably than the hardware price does.

Openpath Alternatives Compared

These five Openpath alternatives differ in controller capacity, credential support, video integration and how much of your wider security setup they bring together.

The Five Systems, in Detail

Coram appears first because it is the publisher's product; the other entries cover the incumbent Avigilon Alta, followed by Brivo, Verkada and UniFi Access, each with a different approach to managing doors and the systems around them.

Coram

Coram Access Control brings cloud-managed access control together with cameras, emergency management and visitor management on one platform. For IT teams comparing Openpath access control alternatives, its main distinction is how the doors and cameras work together: a badge swipe can pull up the matching camera clip, and door alerts can be paired with video instead of appearing only as entries in an access log.

The platform supports alerts for events such as held-open doors, forced entry, tailgating, tampering and low battery. Tailgating detection has an important requirement: because it is video-based, a camera must be associated with each door you want to monitor.

Credentials: A person can only open doors once you've added them as a user, given them at least one access method (a physical keycard, app-based remote unlock, or both), and granted them permission to unlock specific doors.

Best for: An IT-led organization that wants doors, cameras and emergency response under one login and one user list.

The honest limit: The controller capacity. The DC-41 supports up to four doors, and the DC-11 supports one. That is not a ceiling on site size, and there is no software limit to the number of controllers you can add, but larger deployments may require multiple controllers.

Avigilon Alta (Formerly Openpath)

For organizations already using Openpath access control, staying with Avigilon Alta is a legitimate option. The product continues under the Avigilon name, and its emphasis on mobile credentials remains central to its positioning. Avigilon describes it as: "Our 100% serverless cloud-native access control solution maximizes flexibility with leading mobile access technology."

Third-party lock support is also carried forward: "Integrate wireless locks from leading third-party vendors into your access control systems." That capability may matter to IT teams managing a mix of door hardware rather than standardizing every opening around one lock type.

Credentials: The touchless and wave-to-unlock credential experience was central to Openpath's identity, and it remains the strongest reason to choose Alta over the alternatives here, particularly for environments where frictionless entry at volume is the primary requirement.

Best for: Organizations already operating inside Motorola's portfolio, and buyers whose use case is built around the mobile and touchless credential experience Openpath established.

The honest limit: Alta now sits inside a large portfolio with roadmap priorities that span cameras, video analytics, and other Motorola lines. A buyer who cares most about how fast the door software itself evolves should ask how Alta's roadmap is prioritized within that portfolio.

Brivo

Brivo focuses on managing access across buildings and sites from a central dashboard. Its positioning is straightforward: "Control who enters your buildings remotely from a single dashboard for clear, data-driven visibility across every site." That makes it relevant to organizations where administrators need consistent oversight across a property portfolio.

For commercial real estate operators and property managers, that multi-site dashboard framing reflects how Brivo actually gets used: across portfolios of buildings where consistent remote administration matters more than deep platform integration.

Brivo is no longer access control alone. After its merger with Eagle Eye Networks, announced in December 2025, the combined Brivo Security Suite brings access control, video intelligence, visitor management and intrusion into one offering, with video as a first-party product rather than a third-party integration.

For buyers evaluating Openpath access control alternatives in that context, Brivo's installation base and integrator relationships are the relevant differentiators.

Best for: Commercial real estate operators, property managers, and multi-tenant portfolio owners where the integrator ecosystem and multi-site visibility are the primary evaluation criteria.

The honest limit: Emergency management is not part of the suite as Brivo describes it, so a buyer who wants panic buttons and emergency response on the same platform as the doors will still need another product.

Verkada

Verkada describes its approach as "Hybrid cloud access control that strengthens security, maximizes visibility, and streamlines management," and it explicitly accommodates existing infrastructure, saying "Continue using your existing readers and keycards."

The combination of cloud-managed cameras and doors under a single vendor, with a setup experience designed for speed, is what Verkada is built around. This matters to organizations assessing whether a move requires replacing all their installed door hardware.

For a buyer who wants one vendor relationship covering both cameras and doors and who values deployment simplicity over hardware flexibility, Verkada's integrated approach is the argument. The onboarding experience is designed to reduce the coordination overhead that comes with assembling access control and video from separate platforms.

Best for: Buyers who want cloud-managed cameras and access control from one vendor and are willing to work within a more defined hardware ecosystem in exchange for that consolidation.

The honest limit: Verkada's own architecture description is hybrid cloud, and a buyer with specific requirements about where video is processed or stored should establish those specifics before contracting. Hardware portability is more constrained than with open-integration alternatives.

For a detailed look at what that means in practice and why hardware flexibility alone does not resolve platform lock-in, how Coram and Verkada compare on lock-in works through that argument, though it is scoped to K-12 environments.

UniFi Access

UniFi Access is "a modern access control system with touchscreen readers, live video, and mobile app credential support," built on Ubiquiti hardware and designed for teams that want to own their infrastructure end to end.

Ubiquiti's licensing position on cameras across its ecosystem shows a broader philosophy of removing per-unit recurring software costs. For a technical team already running Ubiquiti networking, adding access control on the same infrastructure is a coherent extension of what is already in place. Here, the attraction is control over the stack and a licensing approach that can reduce recurring software costs in parts of the wider Ubiquiti ecosystem.

One important distinction: Ubiquiti's statement that camera licensing remains at $0 applies to cameras, not necessarily to door access licensing, so buyers should verify the specific costs for the access control products they plan to deploy.

Best for: IT or network teams that run their own infrastructure, are comfortable owning the support function, and want to keep recurring software costs as low as possible.

The honest limit: UniFi Access is built for teams that want to own their stack, and that means owning the troubleshooting. A buyer who needs enterprise support SLAs, compliance audit documentation, or a vendor to call during a 2 a.m. incident should confirm what Ubiquiti provides before deciding on licensing economics alone. Licensing is only one part of the decision; the team also needs to be comfortable owning the system beyond deployment.

What to Check Before You Switch

Before choosing an Openpath access control alternative, check these six things with each vendor:

• Scope of the hardware change: Ask the vendor to identify which components will stay and which must be replaced. Readers, locks and cabling may carry over, but the controller panel and software platform generally need to change when moving to a different system. That is why the cost of switching can be lower than buyers initially expect. A clear breakdown helps you compare the actual scope of each proposal instead of judging the switch on a full-replacement assumption.
• Reader protocol: Find out whether your existing readers use Wiegand or OSDP. OSDP is the more current standard; Wiegand is more common in older installations and still works, but the topology differs. The protocol affects compatibility and determines how much of the existing reader setup and wiring can be retained, so confirm it before anyone quotes for the change.
• Lock type: Wired 12V or 24V electric strikes and magnetic locks are driven by compatible wired controllers. Wi-Fi locks are a different hardware category and will not work with a wired controller, so identify the lock types in your current installation before assuming they can carry over.
• Bulk user loading: Ask how the vendor will migrate your existing users, especially if you have hundreds or thousands of accounts. The answer reveals more about the implementation than most demo calls do. With Coram, bulk user uploads are handled by the team during onboarding rather than through a self-service import tool. That is worth factoring into your migration plan if your team expects to manage the process independently the week before go-live.
• Directory provisioning: If your organization needs user accounts provisioned automatically from its identity provider (Okta, Azure AD, Google Workspace), ask whether that capability is available today or still on the roadmap. Get the answer in writing. Coram's automatic directory provisioning is on the roadmap, so teams that require it immediately should confirm whether the current setup meets their needs before committing.
• Renewal date: Check when your current access control contract renews before approaching vendors. That date can give you leverage when discussing terms and gives your IT team a realistic window to evaluate alternatives, confirm hardware compatibility and plan a transition.

Choosing Between Them

The five alternatives on this page are all credible answers to the question of what replaces or competes with Openpath access control. The difference between them is not quality, it is fit.

A commercial landlord managing fifteen buildings, an IT director consolidating physical security under one identity provider, and a network team that already owns its Ubiquiti stack are asking the same question and arriving at different right answers.

If the platform approach (doors, cameras, and emergency management under one login) is the direction that matches how your organization operates, how Coram Access Control works is the place to start.