Quick Comparison
| Alternative | Best for | Price (Oct 2026) | Encryption and privacy | Based in | Open source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ente Photos | Most people, families | 10 GB free; 1 TB about $9.99/month | End-to-end encrypted | USA | Yes (AGPL-3.0) |
| Immich | Self-hosters | Free software; your own hardware | Your own server | Open-source project backed by FUTO | Yes |
| Proton Drive Photos | Proton subscribers | 5 GB free (shared with Drive); 200 GB about $4.99/month | End-to-end encrypted | Switzerland | Apps, yes |
| iCloud Photos | iPhone and Mac households | Small free tier; paid iCloud+ plans | End-to-end encrypted with Advanced Data Protection on | USA | No |
Is There a Free, Unlimited Google Photos Alternative?
No serious one. Storing tens of thousands of full-resolution photos and videos costs real money, and a service that doesn’t charge you has to cover that cost some other way. This is what each free plan actually gets you.
- Ente gives you 10 GB, end-to-end encrypted.
- Proton Drive gives you 5 GB, shared with your files.
- Filen gives you 10 GiB of encrypted storage, built for files first.
- Immich has no limit except the disks you buy. The software is free, and the hardware, electricity and backups are on you.
For most people, a paid plan of 200 GB to 1 TB is the realistic budget. Storage cost at hundreds of gigabytes is one of the main reasons people hesitate, so check your usage at photos.google.com/storage before you choose a plan.
The Alternatives, One by One
Ente Photos
The closest encrypted equivalent to Google Photos, from Ente Technologies, Inc. It offers shared albums, family plans and apps for every platform, including F-Droid on Android. Security firms Cure53, Symbolic Software and Fallible have audited it, and the same company makes the free Ente Auth app.
- Pick it for Google-Photos-style backup and albums, without the provider being able to see your pictures.
- A possible deal-breaker is that search and face grouping are weaker than Google’s. Uploading a whole library from a phone is slow, so use the desktop app for the first import. Some users miss two-way sync with the phone gallery.
- Prices on Ente’s website (Oct 2026) are about $2.49 a month for 50 GB, $4.99 for 200 GB, $9.99 for 1 TB and $19.99 for 2 TB. In-app prices on the US App Store are higher (1 TB about $11.99).
- To move your library, follow our Google Photos to Ente Photos walkthrough.
Immich (Self-Hosted)
An open-source photo server backed by FUTO, with apps for iOS, Android and the web. It has been stable since version 2.0.0 (1 October 2025), and version 3.3.3 came out on 14 October 2026. Version 3.0 (July 2026) had breaking changes, so read Immich’s “Migrating to v3” notes if you’re upgrading an older install.
- Pick it because it feels like Google Photos. You get face recognition, a map, memories, partner sharing and automatic phone backup, all on hardware you own. Self-hosters rate it highly.
- A possible deal-breaker is that you need a server (a NAS or a mini-PC running Docker) and a separate backup. A server in your closet is one copy, which isn’t a backup. Opening it to the internet safely takes care, and search and background sync are weaker than Google’s.
- It costs nothing, though Immich sells an optional supporter license.
- To set it up and import your library, follow our Google Photos to Immich walkthrough, from the server install to phone backup.
- Still deciding? Our Immich vs Google Photos comparison works through the costs, the features and how much upkeep a server takes.
Proton Drive Photos
Proton Drive’s mobile apps back up your camera roll with end-to-end encryption, using the same storage as your files.
- Pick it if you already pay for Proton Unlimited or a family plan, and you want one fewer app.
- Possible deal-breakers are fewer photo features than Ente or Immich, and no face search. There’s no Takeout importer, so you upload manually.
- It uses the same plans as Proton Drive.
iCloud Photos
The easiest move for a household that only uses Apple devices, because Google can send your library straight to iCloud.
- Pick it because there’s no downloading or re-uploading, and photos appear in the Photos app you already use.
- A possible deal-breaker is that it’s only end-to-end encrypted with Advanced Data Protection turned on, and ADP is not available to new users in the UK. There’s no Android app.
- Pricing starts with a small free tier, followed by iCloud+ plans. Check Apple’s current prices.
If you already run Nextcloud or pay for Filen, either can hold your photos too. Both are built for files first, so try browsing and sharing albums before you commit.
Hosted or Self-Hosted?
Choose Ente if you want it to just work and you’d rather pay a monthly fee than maintain anything. Choose Immich if you already run a home server, have a lot of photos (where buying disks beats a subscription), and are happy to handle updates and backups. Many self-hosters keep a second copy of their Immich library, ideally off-site, with a tool such as restic or rclone.
Google Photos Alternatives With No AI
Some people leave Google Photos because they don’t want an AI model looking through their family pictures. Encryption is the strongest answer. Here is how each option handles it.
- Ente encrypts photos on your device before upload. Its servers hold data they can’t read, so there’s nothing for a server-side AI to scan or train on. Ente says its search and face recognition run on your own devices.
- Immich runs any machine learning on your own server. Nobody else’s computer sees your photos.
- Proton Drive stores photos encrypted and doesn’t do face search at all.
How to Switch From Google Photos
There are two routes. Our step-by-step Google Photos migration guide covers both in detail, with every screen.
The first route is a direct transfer to iCloud Photos. Google can copy your library to Apple’s servers, so nothing passes through your computer. Start at takeout.google.com/takeout/transfer/custom/photos, choose Apple - iCloud Photos, sign in to your Apple Account and click Allow. You need iCloud Photos and iCloud Drive turned on, enough iCloud storage, and Advanced Data Protection turned off during the transfer (turn it back on afterward). It takes between several hours and a few days. File names, descriptions and locations come across. Motion Photos and Memories don’t.
The second route is a Takeout download, then an import into Ente or Immich.
- Make sure you have free disk space of about twice your Google Photos usage, for the zip files plus the extracted copy.
- At takeout.google.com, click Deselect all, tick Google Photos and leave All photo albums included as it is.
- Choose .zip and 50GB, then click Create export. Big libraries can take a day or more to prepare.
- Download every part within about 7 days. Each part can be downloaded 5 times.
- For Ente, unzip all parts into one folder, then open the Ente desktop app, choose upload and pick its Google Takeout option. For Immich, run immich-go, which reads the zip files directly and matches each photo to its metadata.
- Check that photo counts per year match, turn on backup in the new app, then turn off Google Photos backup (Settings → Backup → off).
- Delete from Google Photos only after you’ve checked everything arrived.
Photos are often the biggest single item in a Google account. To see what else is tied to yours before you delete anything, run the free scan.
What You Lose
Partial is fine. You can turn off Google Photos backup today, start fresh in Ente or Immich, and move the old library later when you have a free weekend.