Immich is a self-hosted Google Photos alternative that provides automatic mobile photo and video backup, facial recognition, and album management, storing all your media on your own server with no Google access.
The Problem
Google Photos limits free storage, scans your images, and grants Google license to use your photos for product improvement. iCloud is Apple-only and requires ongoing storage subscriptions. For families and individuals who generate thousands of photos per year, these services represent growing costs and permanent vendor dependency for irreplaceable personal media.
How Immich Solves It
Immich provides a mobile app for iOS and Android that automatically backs up photos and videos to your self-hosted server over local WiFi or the internet. The web interface supports browsing by date, album, or face cluster, viewing photos on a map, and sharing albums. Machine learning features (facial recognition, object classification) run entirely on your server. AGPL-3.0 licensed; deploy via Docker Compose.
Key Features
- Automatic mobile backup for iOS and Android over WiFi or any network connection
- Facial recognition and object classification running locally on your server (no cloud AI)
- Interactive map view showing where photos were taken via EXIF GPS metadata
- Album creation, sharing with other Immich users, and public share links
- RAW photo support and video transcoding for broad format compatibility
- AGPL-3.0 licensed; deploy via Docker Compose with storage on any attached volume
Self-Hosting
Deploy via Docker Compose from the official repository. Mount a local directory or NFS share as the media storage volume; Immich handles the rest. The machine learning service (facial recognition, CLIP search) runs as a sidecar container and can be GPU-accelerated with NVIDIA hardware.
License
AGPL-3.0. Free to self-host and modify. If you distribute a modified version as a network service, you must open-source your changes under AGPL.
Who It's For
Immich is best for privacy-conscious individuals and families who want complete control over their photo library, are willing to run a home server or VPS, and want a Google Photos-equivalent experience without the privacy trade-offs or subscription costs.
Compared to Google Photos
Unlike Google Photos, Immich stores all photos and videos on your own server with no Google access to your media. Google Photos has better AI photo search, more seamless device integration, and no maintenance overhead; Immich gives complete data ownership, unlimited storage bounded only by your hardware, and facial recognition that runs locally.
