Immich
$18.00 / month with a 7-day free trial and a $1.00 sign-up fee
The self-hosted Google Photos replacement that finally got the iOS/Android auto-backup right — face recognition, object detection, shared albums, all running on your subdomain.
A managed instance of Immich on ElfHosted — the self-hosted photo and video management server that turned the “leave Google Photos” project from “theoretically possible” into “easy”. Native mobile apps with auto-upload from camera roll, on-device + server-side ML for face / object / OCR search, shared albums, timeline view, map view, RAW support. AGPL-3.0, your library lives in your storage.
Immich is the project that finally made "leave Google Photos" actually achievable for normal people.
What is Immich?
Immich is a self-hosted photo and video management server with the user experience of Google Photos and the privacy of running on your own subdomain. Three things make it the standout alternative:
- Mobile apps that work like the Google Photos app. Auto-upload from camera roll on iOS and Android, background sync, foreground sync, share-sheet integration. The friction-free experience is what kept everyone on Google Photos; Immich finally matches it.
- Machine learning that runs on your server. Face recognition (cluster faces, name them, search by person), object detection (search "dog at the beach", "birthday cake"), OCR on photos with text. All on-device or on your Immich server — nothing exfiltrated.
- Active development. The project ships rapidly. Major features (timeline scrubbing, shared albums, partner sharing, external libraries) have all landed in active 2024-2026 development.
Features
- 📱 Native iOS & Android apps — auto-backup from camera roll, share-sheet upload, offline-aware upload queue. The experience that makes "leave Google Photos" stick.
- 🤖 On-server ML — face recognition (with manual naming), object/scene detection, OCR for text-in-photos. Search "Sarah's birthday" or "receipts" and get matches.
- 🗺️ Map view — photos plotted on a world map by EXIF GPS data; click a region to see everything from that trip.
- 📅 Timeline scrubbing — fast scroll through years; "memories" ("on this day, 5 years ago") work like Google's.
- 👥 Shared albums & partner sharing — invite people to specific albums, or share your full library with a partner.
- 📷 RAW support — handles Sony ARW, Canon CR2/CR3, Nikon NEF, Fuji RAF, plus standard JPEG/HEIC/PNG. Apple Live Photos preserved.
- 🎥 Video — playback, transcoding, thumbnail extraction. Phone-shot videos and full DSLR workflow both supported.
- 📂 External libraries — point Immich at an existing folder of photos (your old Lightroom catalogue, an SMB share, an rclone-mounted cloud bucket) and it imports as read-only without copying.
- 🔓 FOSS & AGPL-3.0 — no premium tier, no telemetry, no usage caps.
Immich vs Other Photo Management Options
- vs. Google Photos — feature parity is now genuinely close on the core experience (auto-upload, search, sharing, memories). The differences: Google's storage caps don't apply (your storage = your storage); Google's ML model is bigger and finds more obscure things ("photos with a red bicycle"); Immich's privacy is real because it's running on your subdomain.
- vs. PhotoPrism — PhotoPrism is the long-running self-hosted alternative; mature, polished, slightly heavier on resources. Immich is newer but has caught up on features and now leads on mobile-app quality. Either is a good pick — the deciding factor is usually "have you tried both, which clicked".
- vs. Synology Photos / QNAP / Nextcloud Photos — these are bundled with NAS or cloud-suite products. Lighter feature sets, no ML search, weaker mobile apps. Immich is purpose-built for the photo workflow.
- vs. Apple Photos / iCloud — Apple's ecosystem is excellent on Apple devices; Immich is the answer for cross-platform households (Android + iOS + desktop) and for people who don't want their library hostage to Apple's storage tiers.
Pair Immich with ImmichFrame to turn a TV / tablet / e-ink display into a digital photo frame pulling from your Immich library — a popular "set it on the kitchen counter" use case.
Why Run Immich on ElfHosted?
Self-hosting Immich is genuinely involved — Postgres, Redis, ML model storage, transcoding workers, mobile-app-facing HTTPS endpoint. ElfHosted handles all of it:
- Pre-configured Postgres + Redis + ML stack — no Docker Compose to maintain.
- HTTPS on your own ElfHosted subdomain — required for the iOS / Android apps to upload over cellular without VPN.
- Server-grade CPU for ML inference — face recognition runs in minutes, not hours, on a sizeable library import.
- Persistent backed-up storage — photo libraries grow into hundreds of GB; ElfHosted's storage tier handles that gracefully.
- Updates handled across versions — Immich ships releases roughly monthly with breaking-change migrations handled.
- Single subscription: $18/month (heavier resource tier reflects ML inference + transcoding + database load).
Technical Specifications
- 🛠️ Software: Immich (FOSS, AGPL-3.0)
- 📱 Mobile apps: iOS (App Store) and Android (Play Store + F-Droid) — official, free
- 🤖 ML features: face recognition, object/scene detection, OCR, semantic search via CLIP
- 📷 Photo formats: JPEG, PNG, HEIC/HEIF, WebP, AVIF, plus RAW (Sony ARW, Canon CR2/CR3, Nikon NEF, Fuji RAF, Apple ProRAW, etc.)
- 🎥 Video formats: MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV, WebM, plus iPhone HEVC; transcoding to web-friendly formats handled server-side
- 📂 External libraries: read-only import from filesystem paths, including rclone-mounted cloud storage
- 🗺️ Geo features: map view, reverse geocoding, EXIF GPS extraction
- 📥 Import: Google Takeout, Apple Photos export, Synology Photos, raw filesystem trees
- 🔑 Subscription: $18/month — Immich itself is fully free
- 🌐 Access: HTTPS on your own ElfHosted subdomain (required for mobile apps)
- 🔄 Updates: handled by ElfHosted across major version migrations
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I run Immich without self-hosting it?
Add it to your ElfHosted subscription — this product is a managed Immich instance with HTTPS, Postgres, Redis, ML model storage, transcoding, persistent backed-up library storage, and SSO via your ElfHosted account. No Docker Compose, no model-download scripting.
How do I migrate from Google Photos?
Use Google Takeout to export your Google Photos library, then import via Immich's bulk-upload tool. Photo metadata (timestamps, GPS, album membership) survives the round-trip. Most users do an initial import then switch their iOS / Android auto-backup target to Immich and let it run.
How accurate is the face recognition?
On a typical family library it identifies most repeat faces correctly after manual labelling of a few examples. Like all face-recognition, it occasionally confuses similar-looking relatives — manual cluster merging is supported.
What about my partner's photos?
Partner sharing is built in — the partner gets read access to your library on their account; you both keep separate primary libraries. Or use shared albums for specific events.
How big can my library be?
ElfHosted's storage tier scales — your subscription includes a storage allocation that grows with usage. There's no hard cap on photo count, only on total storage used.
Can I display my Immich library on a digital photo frame?
Yes — that's exactly what ImmichFrame is for. Add it as a separate subscription; ImmichFrame runs on a TV, tablet, e-ink display, or Raspberry Pi and pulls from your Immich library on a slideshow.
Is Immich better than PhotoPrism?
Honestly, depends. PhotoPrism is more mature; Immich has caught up on features and now has the better mobile-app experience. If you've used neither, start with Immich (the mobile-app-led workflow is the differentiator). If you have a heavy existing PhotoPrism library and the workflow works, no need to switch.
Immich is the self-hosted Google Photos alternative that finally made the leap-from-Google project realistic. Native mobile apps with auto-backup, on-server ML for face/object/text search, shared albums, RAW support, partner sharing. Hosted on ElfHosted with HTTPS, Postgres, transcoding, and backed-up storage for $18/month — the heavier-resource tier reflects the ML inference and database load.
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Verified owner mediabox (verified owner) –
I’ve just finished setting up Immich through ElfHosted and linked it with Backblaze B2, and I have to say — the whole process was surprisingly straightforward. I followed the ElfHosted YouTube video, and it walked me through everything step by step. Even with no prior experience running a photo server, I had it up and running in less than an hour.
Immich itself is fantastic. It’s fast, slick, and genuinely feels like a proper replacement for Google Photos. Uploads from my phone work seamlessly, the AI tagging and search are spot-on, and browsing through years of photos feels effortless. I also love that everything is securely stored on my own Backblaze B2 storage, giving me the same convenience as Google Photos but without handing over control of my data.
Between ElfHosted’s clear setup guide and how well Immich runs, this setup has completely replaced Google Photos for me. Couldn’t recommend it more highly — it just works.
Excellent alternative to google photos.
Might be seen as expensive if you don't have one of the higher bundles with discounts.