The Open Source Alternative to Google Photos & Apple iCloud Photos

🩺 Vitals

📦 Version: v2.5.2 (Released 2026-01-29)
🚀 Velocity: Active (Last commit 2026-01-30)
🌟 Community: 91.1k Stars · 4.8k Forks
🐞 Backlog: 740 Open Issues

🏗️ Profile

Official: immich.app
Source: github.com/immich-app/immich
License: AGPL-3.0
Deployment: Docker
Data Model: PostgreSQL + Redis + Typesense
Jurisdiction: USA 🇺🇸
Compliance: Not specified (Self-hosted)
Complexity: Medium (3/5) - Machine Learning microservices
Maintenance: Medium (3/5) - Rapid Development
Enterprise Ready: Low (2/5) - Personal Focus

1. The Executive Summary

What is it? Immich is a self-hosted photo and video backup solution that directly challenges the user experience of Google Photos and Apple iCloud. It provides a polished mobile app (iOS/Android) for automatic background uploads, a responsive web interface, and powerful server-side features like facial recognition and object detection. For individuals and families who want to de-google their lives without sacrificing the convenience of a modern photo gallery, Immich is the gold standard.

The Strategic Verdict:

🔴 For Enterprise Asset Management: Caution. Immich is designed for personal memories, not corporate digital asset management (DAM). It lacks granular RBAC, approval workflows, or enterprise metadata standards.
🟢 For Privacy-Conscious Individuals & Families: Strong Buy. It effectively replicates the "magic" of Google Photos (search by face, map view, memories) while keeping 100% of the data on your own hardware.

2. The "Hidden" Costs (TCO Analysis)

Cost Component	Proprietary (Google Photos / iCloud)	Immich (Open Source)
Storage Fees	Recurring monthly cost (e.g., $9.99/mo for 2TB). Prices hike regularly.	One-time Hardware Cost. Pay for your HDDs. No monthly rent.
Privacy	Photos scanned for ads/training (Google).	100% Private. Machine learning runs locally on your server.
Data Lock-in	Difficult to export metadata/albums perfectly (Google Takeout is messy).	Files on Disk. Original files are stored in a standard folder structure.

3. The "Day 2" Reality Check

🚀 Deployment & Operations

Installation: Deployed via a comprehensive docker-compose.yml stack. It involves several containers (Server, Microservices, Machine Learning, Postgres, Redis).
Hardware: Requires decent CPU/RAM for the Machine Learning container (facial recognition). A GPU is highly recommended for video transcoding and faster AI inference.
Mobile App: The killer feature. The mobile app is performant, supports background backup, and feels native.

🛡️ Security & Governance

Access Control: Supports multi-user setups (e.g., for family members) with separate libraries and shared albums.
Backup: Since you are the cloud, you are responsible for backup. Immich does not backup itself. You must implement a 3-2-1 backup strategy for the underlying storage volume.

Immich