Wyze’s home security system is ridiculously cheap — even after the price bumps many of its products saw in early 2021. The company’s home monitoring system costs $100 and comes with two door/window sensors, a motion detector, a keypad and a base station with a built-in siren — plenty of devices for an apartment. 

In short, Wyze’s is a solid system with a really appealing price tag — and it’s cheaply and easily scalable for a variety of apartment or home sizes (adding a camera, for instance, will set you back as little as $30). The big drawback? It doesn’t have cellular backup, which means if the power or internet go down, you lose the professional monitoring and remote alerts. The system will still work locally, though, so if someone breaks in while the power is down, the siren is still going to sound.

Read our Wyze Home Monitoring review.

Ring has a ton of baggage, but its five-piece home security system is a solid midrange DIY security option for renters. It comes with a door/window sensor, a motion sensor, a keypad, a range extender and a base station. While it’s not as good as its Ring Alarm Pro system, many renters don’t need a new router — let alone a mesh Wi-Fi system.

What I like most about this Ring Alarm for renters, though, is that it works with the Ring Peephole Cam, which is one of the only video doorbells that works with those peepholes you often find in apartment buildings. Like Wyze, Ring unfortunately doesn’t have cell backup.

Read our Ring Alarm review.

SimpliSafe is our favorite DIY home security system for renters for several reasons: it’s reliable, well-priced and has no significant weaknesses (that’s right, you have cell backup here, unlike the two systems above). That said, SimpliSafe does have one shortcoming for renters in particular: its video doorbell is wired-only. For many renters without doorbell wiring (or without permission to fiddle with it), that takes the video doorbell off the table.

If you’re not worried about the video doorbell, though, SimpliSafe offers fantastic packages at prices that, while slightly higher than the systems above, beat out direct competitors like Abode. Packages start at $245, but you can regularly find them on sale on the SimpliSafe website for significantly less — at the time of writing, for instance, the base package only costs $196.

Read our SimpliSafe review.