Immich vs PhotoPrism vs LibrePhotos
Why Self-Host Your Photos?
Google Photos changed its free unlimited storage policy in 2021 — all uploads now count toward your Google account's 15GB limit. After that, you pay $3/month for 100GB, $9.99/month for 2TB. iCloud costs similar. Amazon Photos is free for Prime members but Prime is $14.99/month.
Your photo library is personal, permanent, and often irreplaceable. Keeping it in a vendor's cloud means trusting them with your memories, paying indefinitely for storage, and depending on service continuity.
Self-hosted photo management gives you unlimited storage (limited only by your hardware), automatic mobile backup, AI-powered search and face recognition, and complete data ownership.
TL;DR
- Immich (90K+ GitHub stars): The clear winner in 2026. Google Photos-like experience, native mobile apps with automatic backup, excellent AI features. Fastest-growing self-hosted photo tool ever.
- PhotoPrism (39K+ stars): Good for AI-powered organization and searching. Fewer mobile backup features than Immich, no native apps.
- LibrePhotos (8K+ stars): Best face detection quality. More niche but actively developed. Better at finding faces than PhotoPrism.
Quick Comparison
| Feature | Immich | PhotoPrism | LibrePhotos |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Stars | 90K+ | 39K+ | 8K+ |
| Mobile app (iOS/Android) | Native app | PWA only | PWA only |
| Auto backup from phone | Yes | Manual/WebDAV | Limited |
| Face recognition | Good | Limited | Excellent |
| AI search | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Video support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Albums | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sharing | Yes | Yes | Limited |
| Map view | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| RAW support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosting complexity | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
Immich — The Clear 2026 Winner
Immich hit 90,000+ GitHub stars in early 2026, making it one of the fastest-growing self-hosted projects in history. The reason is simple: it genuinely replicates the Google Photos experience better than any alternative, with features like automatic phone backup, AI photo search, shared albums, and timeline view.
What Makes It Stand Out
Native mobile apps: Immich has official iOS and Android apps that automatically back up photos and videos from your phone. Open the app, connect to your Immich server, and your photos start syncing immediately. This is the killer feature — no more manual transfers.
AI-powered search: Search your photos by content: "beach," "birthday cake," "cats," "sunset," "red car." The AI analyzes image content and builds a searchable index. Find photos you couldn't remember the name or date of.
Face recognition: Automatically detect and group faces across your library. Name the faces you see, and Immich will surface all photos of that person.
Timeline and memories: Scroll through photos organized by date and location. "Memories" resurface photos from 1, 3, or 5 years ago — the same feature that makes Google Photos feel personal.
Video support: Upload and playback videos alongside photos. Transcoding for web streaming included.
Shared albums: Create albums and share them with other Immich users or via link. Perfect for family photo sharing.
External library support: Point Immich at an existing directory of photos (e.g., your existing photo backup) and it will index them without moving files.
Self-Hosting
services:
immich-server:
image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:release
volumes:
- /photos:/usr/src/app/upload
ports:
- "2283:3001"
immich-microservices:
image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:release
command: microservices
volumes:
- /photos:/usr/src/app/upload
immich-machine-learning:
image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-machine-learning:release
volumes:
- immich-model-cache:/cache
redis:
image: redis:6.2-alpine
database:
image: tensorchord/pgvecto-rs:pg16-v0.2.0
environment:
POSTGRES_PASSWORD: postgres
POSTGRES_USER: postgres
POSTGRES_DB: immich
Immich requires 4-5 Docker containers. The machine learning container handles AI features — you can omit it to save resources, but you lose AI-powered search and face recognition.
Resource requirements: 2GB RAM minimum for basic use, 4GB+ recommended for AI features. GPU acceleration for the machine learning container dramatically speeds up indexing.
Limitations
- More complex deployment than simpler gallery tools
- Initial ML indexing is slow (days for large libraries)
- Heavier resource usage than PhotoPrism for basic photo viewing
Best for: Anyone replacing Google Photos or iCloud. The best self-hosted photo management solution in 2026 for most use cases.
PhotoPrism — Best for Advanced Organization
PhotoPrism (39K+ stars) takes a more technical approach to photo management. It's excellent for photographers with large, carefully organized libraries who want AI assistance with tagging and search.
What Makes It Stand Out
AI classification: PhotoPrism uses multiple AI models to classify photos by content, scene, color, quality, and other attributes. Photos get automatically tagged.
RAW processing: Strong support for camera RAW files (CR2, ARW, NEF, etc.) with JPEG previews generated.
Private mode: Photos can be marked private and excluded from public sharing and search.
Sync modes: Flexible sync options — import/copy files, watch folders, WebDAV server for mobile apps.
Advanced search: Powerful search syntax including labels, colors, years, locations, and quality scores.
Self-Hosting
docker run -d \
--name photoprism \
-p 2342:2342 \
-v /photos/originals:/photoprism/originals \
-v /photos/storage:/photoprism/storage \
-e PHOTOPRISM_AUTH_MODE="password" \
-e PHOTOPRISM_ADMIN_PASSWORD="password" \
photoprism/photoprism:latest
PhotoPrism can run as a single container (with SQLite) or with MariaDB for better performance at scale.
Limitations
- No native mobile apps — mobile backup requires third-party apps like PhotoSync or Syncthing
- Face detection is less accurate than Immich or LibrePhotos
- Less active development pace than Immich
Best for: Photographers with established workflows who want AI-powered search and tagging without migrating to Immich's architecture.
LibrePhotos — Best Face Detection
LibrePhotos (8K+ stars) is the smaller, more niche option — but it has one distinctive strength: face detection quality significantly better than PhotoPrism.
What Makes It Stand Out
Face detection: LibrePhotos uses MTCNN for face detection, finding roughly 10x more faces than PhotoPrism in comparable tests. If face recognition and organization is important to your photo library, LibrePhotos excels here.
Photo Stacks: LibrePhotos recently added support for RAW+JPEG pairs and Live Photos as stacked photo entities — similar to how Photos.app handles these on Apple devices.
Python/Django backend: If you want to understand or modify the code, LibrePhotos is simpler to work with than Immich's TypeScript/Java stack.
Active development: Despite smaller star count, LibrePhotos continues regular updates and blog posts documenting progress.
Self-Hosting
git clone https://github.com/LibrePhotos/librephotos-docker
cd librephotos-docker
cp .env.sample .env
docker compose up -d
LibrePhotos runs as multiple containers (frontend, backend, ML services, PostgreSQL, Redis).
Limitations
- Less polished interface than Immich
- No native mobile apps
- Smaller community and fewer integrations
- Less actively developed than Immich
Best for: Users who prioritize face detection quality and prefer a Python/Django codebase.
Storage Cost Comparison
Commercial Photo Storage (Annual)
| Service | Storage | Annual Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Google One | 100GB | $36 |
| Google One | 2TB | $120 |
| iCloud | 200GB | $36 |
| iCloud | 2TB | $120 |
| Amazon Photos | Unlimited photos (Prime req.) | $180 (Prime) |
Self-Hosted (2TB Storage)
| Setup | Storage | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hetzner Storage Box 2TB | 2TB external | $4.36 | $52 |
| Hetzner CPX21 + 2TB local SSD | 2TB | $40 | $480 |
| Hetzner CPX21 + Hetzner Volume 2TB | 2TB | $6.50 + $20 | $318 |
For 2TB, self-hosting saves $0-$162/year over commercial options depending on setup. At 5TB+ (where commercial costs jump significantly), self-hosting saves substantially more.
The real value is unlimited photos from all family members without per-account fees, and permanent data ownership.
Migration from Google Photos
- Use Google Takeout to export all photos
- Extract the .zip files from Takeout
- Import into Immich via CLI:
immich upload --recursive /path/to/takeout/Google\ Photos/ - Immich preserves original dates from EXIF and Takeout JSON metadata
- Install Immich mobile app and configure auto backup
For large Google Photos libraries (100GB+), the export + import process takes several hours to days depending on connection speed.
Find Your Photo Manager
Browse all Google Photos alternatives on OSSAlt — compare Immich, PhotoPrism, LibrePhotos, Piwigo, and every other open source photo management platform with deployment guides and feature comparisons.