Self-hosted Google Photos alternatives

Immich is the open-source, self-hosted Google Photos alternative most people should try first. It has native Android and iOS apps that back up your camera roll, plus face recognition, smart search and a timeline that works much like Google's. If your photos already live in folders you keep in order by hand, PhotoPrism, or the Memories app on an existing Nextcloud, fits that way of working better.

#The shortlist

• Immich: best for replacing Google Photos on your phone.
• PhotoPrism: best for indexing and browsing an existing folder archive.
• Ente: best if you want end-to-end encryption and the option of a hosted service.
• Nextcloud Memories: best if you already run Nextcloud.
• LibrePhotos: best for tinkerers who want an MIT-licensed project with machine learning.

#At a glance

"Official RAM guidance" means each project's own docs, fetched 29 September 2026. None of these numbers come from benchmarks.

#Immich

Best for: replacing Google Photos on your phone.

Immich is the closest match to what Google Photos feels like day to day. The mobile app backs up selected albums to your server. The web and mobile apps give you a timeline, map, memories ("on this day"), shared and partner albums, face recognition, smart search by description, duplicate detection, live and motion photos, RAW files and a locked folder. Each person gets their own account. The FAQ is firm that originals are never compressed.

You'll need Docker Compose on 64-bit Linux, with 6GB of RAM minimum (8GB recommended) and 2 to 4 cores. A 4GB machine can run it only with machine learning disabled, which means no faces and no smart search. The latest release is v3.2.4 (28 September 2026). More detail, including Raspberry Pi sizing, is in the Immich profile.

#PhotoPrism

Best for: indexing an existing, organised folder archive.

PhotoPrism indexes the folders you mount into it, so it suits a library you already manage on disk. It detects faces, classifies images, reads RAW, handles video and live photos, and plots pictures on maps. Its editions table shows Faces in every edition, including the free Community edition.

The trade-offs against Immich are practical ones:

• Mobile: there's no native backup app. The editions page lists a PWA and the third-party PhotoSync app for every tier.
• Users: the Community edition's roles are Super Admin, Admin and Guest. The "User" and "Viewer" roles start with the Essentials membership (€2 a month). The user-management web UI is in Plus (from €6 a month).
• Maps: reverse geocoding goes through PhotoPrism's own API, and it's rate-limited on Community.

Requirements are lighter: at least 2 cores, 3GB of RAM, a 64-bit OS and 4GB of swap. On a Pi, the docs recommend a Pi 4 or 5 with at least 4GB, and a ready-made PhotoPrismPi SD-card image exists. The latest build is 260919-28c46a116 (19 September 2026). The head-to-head is in Immich vs PhotoPrism.

#Ente

Best for: end-to-end encryption, with a hosted service if you want one.

Ente describes itself as "end-to-end encrypted, cross-platform, open-source". Its help docs say the entire source code, server included, is open source and is the same code it runs in production. The self-hosting quickstart asks for at least 1GB of RAM, 1 CPU core and Docker Compose. It serves the Photos web app on port 3000 and public albums on port 3002. You then point the Ente Photos mobile app at your server. The docs also say you can import from Google Takeout using their migration guide.

It suits someone who wants Ente's encryption model but full control of the server. If encryption isn't the priority, compare it against Immich's feature list before you decide.

#Nextcloud Memories

Best for: people already running Nextcloud.

Memories is a third-party Nextcloud app that adds a timeline sorted by EXIF date, and people and object grouping through the recognize and facerecognition apps. It also shares with people outside your instance, transcodes video to HLS, and migrates from Nextcloud Photos and Google Takeout. It works through the web app on any device. If you already back up phones to Nextcloud, this gives you a photo view without running a second server.

#LibrePhotos

Best for: tinkerers.

LibrePhotos is a self-hosted, open-source photo manager, MIT-licensed, with face recognition, object detection and semantic search. Its README warns that the machine-learning features are memory-hungry and "strongly" recommends 8GB of RAM or more. The latest release is 1.1.0 (28 August 2026).

#Storage planning before you start

Your library will take more space than the photos alone, and the database needs a proper home.

• Immich: thumbnails and transcoded videos add roughly 10–20% to the library size. The Postgres database is typically 1–3GB and should sit on local SSD storage, never on a network share. The storage should be a Unix filesystem with ownership and permissions (EXT4, ZFS, APFS and similar). On Windows, the database won't work on NTFS or exFAT.
• PhotoPrism: it creates a JPEG sidecar for RAW, JPEG XL, vector and other non-JPEG files, which it needs for thumbnails, classification and face detection. Budget for those. The docs say indexing large collections "benefits greatly" from local SSD storage for the database and cache. They recommend MariaDB over SQLite for performance and say MySQL 8 support has been discontinued.
• Everyone: the originals are what matter. Immich's built-in database backup doesn't copy your photo files, so keep a second copy of the upload folder, or of the folders PhotoPrism indexes, on another disk or machine.

#How to move from Google Photos

1. Export with Google Takeout. Request Google Photos only, as zip archives.
2. Use a tool that understands Takeout's sidecar JSON files.
   • For Immich, the community tool immich-go has an upload from-google-photos command. It takes the Takeout zips directly and matches each photo with its JSON metadata to keep albums, descriptions and locations.
   • Ente and Nextcloud Memories both document their own Google Takeout migration paths.
3. Keep the Takeout zips until you've spot-checked dates, albums and locations on the new server.
4. Turn on phone backup last, so new photos go to the new server once the old library is in.

#Which one should you pick?

• You want Google Photos without Google: Immich.
• You curate folders and just want to browse and search them: PhotoPrism.
• Encryption matters most: Ente.
• You already run Nextcloud: Memories.
• You want to experiment: LibrePhotos.

Planning to run it on a Raspberry Pi? See the best self-hosted apps for a Raspberry Pi for what fits each model and RAM size.