Immich vs Google Photos comes down to one question. Do you want to run your own photo server? Immich looks and works a lot like Google Photos, with a timeline, faces, a map, memories and automatic phone backup. The difference is that it runs on a machine in your home, and keeping it running, updated and backed up is your job.
This page compares the two on privacy, everyday features, cost and effort, and covers Ente for people who want privacy without a server. Prices and versions were checked in October 2026.
Immich and Google Photos Side by Side
| Immich | Google Photos | |
|---|---|---|
| Price (Oct 2026) | Free software. Optional supporter key, $25 per user or $100 per server. You pay for hardware, disks and power | 15 GB free, shared with Gmail and Drive. About $1.99/month for 100 GB or $9.99/month for 2 TB in the US |
| Where your photos live | On your own server, as ordinary files | On Google’s servers |
| Privacy and encryption | Nobody else sees them. Not encrypted on disk unless you encrypt the disk | Encrypted by Google, not end-to-end. Google analyzes them for search, faces and Gemini features |
| Who’s behind it | Open-source project backed by FUTO | Google, USA |
| Face recognition | Yes, on your server | Yes, with Face Groups |
| Search | Objects, faces, metadata, text in photos and plain-language search | The strongest, plus Ask Photos with Gemini |
| Map and memories | Yes | Yes |
| Sharing | Shared albums, partner sharing, public links if your server is reachable online | Shared albums, partner sharing, links to anyone |
| Editing | Crop, rotate and mirror | Full editor with AI tools |
| Phone backup | Yes, though background backup is less reliable | Yes, automatic |
| Platforms | Android, iPhone, web. Server on 64-bit Linux with Docker | Android, iPhone, web |
| Import and export | Imports Google Takeout with immich-go. Originals stay as files you can copy anywhere | Takeout export, with dates and places in separate JSON files |
| Open source | Yes (AGPL-3.0) | No |
Privacy and AI
Google Photos stores your library encrypted, but Google holds the keys and analyzes your photos to power search, Face Groups and its Gemini features. Google says your Photos data is never used for ads, and that it doesn’t train generative AI models outside Google Photos with it. Gemini features such as Ask Photos need Face Groups turned on. For many people that’s acceptable. For others, an AI model looking through family pictures is the reason to leave.
Immich runs face recognition and search on your own hardware, so no company sees your photos. It doesn’t encrypt them on disk by itself, so turn on disk encryption if the server could be stolen. Privacy also depends on how you reach it from outside. Immich’s docs warn against opening its port on your router, because that exposes your login over plain HTTP.
Features You Use Every Day
Faces, Search and Maps
Both group faces, show your photos on a map and resurface old ones as memories. Immich’s search covers objects, faces, metadata and plain-language queries, and version 3.3 (October 2026) improved its text recognition, so you can find a photo of a receipt by the words on it. Google’s search is still better, and Ask Photos lets you ask questions about your library in plain language. Self-hosters report that Immich’s search is good but behind Google’s.
Sharing With Family and Friends
Inside a household, Immich matches Google. Each person gets an account, partner sharing puts one person’s photos in another’s timeline, and shared albums work across accounts. Sharing with people outside is harder. Google gives anyone a link. Immich can make public links too, but only if your server is reachable from the internet, usually through an HTTPS reverse proxy. If you use a VPN such as Tailscale, outsiders can’t open those links.
Editing
Google’s editor is far ahead, with AI tools on top. Immich added an editor in version 2.5 that crops, rotates and mirrors photos without touching the original. Filters aren’t available yet.
Phone Backup
Google Photos backs up in the background without fuss. The Immich app backs up automatically too, but background backup is less reliable, especially on iPhone, where iOS decides when it may run. Open the app every few days to let it catch up.
What Each One Really Costs
Google Photos shares 15 GB of free space with Gmail and Drive. After that, Google One costs about $1.99/month for 100 GB and $9.99/month for 2 TB in the US (Oct 2026). Google now sells the 2 TB tier as Google AI Plus, bundled with Gemini features. Yearly billing saves up to 16%.
Immich costs nothing to use. The costs are hardware you buy once, disks for three copies of your library, and electricity.
- The server. Immich needs a 64-bit Linux machine with at least 6 GB of memory (8 GB recommended) and 2 processor cores (4 recommended). A mini-PC, a NAS that runs Docker or an old desktop all work.
- Storage. Plan for your library plus 10 to 20% for thumbnails and converted videos, then the same again for each backup copy.
- Power. The server runs all day, every day.
To compare, work out your break-even point. At the monthly price, Google’s 2 TB plan costs about $120 a year. If your server and backup disks cost $360, they match three years of that plan, before electricity. If you already own a NAS or an always-on computer, the extra cost can be close to zero. With a small library that fits in Google’s 100 GB plan, a self-hosted server rarely pays for itself.
Who Keeps the Backup Copies
With Google Photos, Google keeps the copies. It isn’t a backup in the strict sense, though. Delete a photo in the app and it disappears from every device that syncs. If you lose access to your Google account, you lose access to the library. Keep an occasional Google Takeout export somewhere else.
With Immich, the server is one copy, and Immich’s own README tells you to always follow a 3-2-1 plan. That means 3 copies, 2 at home on different devices, and 1 off-site. Immich saves a database dump every night, which holds your albums and people but no photos, so you back up both the photo folders and the dumps. A pair of mirrored disks protects you from a dead disk, not from a deleted album or a bad update.
How Much Work Self-Hosting Takes
Plan a weekend for the setup and the import, then a little time every month.
- Updates. Immich releases often. Version 3.0 (July 2026) had breaking changes, and downgrades aren’t supported, so you read the release notes before every upgrade.
- Remote access. Reaching your photos safely from outside takes a VPN or a properly set up HTTPS proxy.
- Repairs. Disks fail and the power goes out, and nobody fixes it but you.
- Skills. You should be comfortable in a terminal, editing a text file and running Docker commands.
Immich has been stable since version 2.0 in October 2025, and version 3.3.3 came out on 14 October 2026. Self-hosters rate it highly. The software isn’t the hard part. The upkeep is.
Ente If You Don’t Want a Server
If you want out of Google Photos but don’t want a server, look at Ente. It’s open source (AGPL-3.0) and end-to-end encrypted, so its servers hold photos they can’t read. Face grouping and search run on your own devices.
- Prices on Ente’s website (Oct 2026). 10 GB free, then about $2.49/month for 50 GB, $4.99 for 200 GB, $9.99 for 1 TB and $19.99 for 2 TB. You can share a plan with family at no extra cost.
- Copies. Paid plans keep your photos in 3 locations.
- Trade-offs. Search and face grouping are weaker than Google’s, and per terabyte Ente costs more than Google’s 2 TB plan.
Our Google Photos to Ente guide covers that move, and our Google Photos alternatives page compares Ente, Immich, Proton Drive and iCloud.
How to Switch From the Google Side
The import is the easy part, thanks to immich-go, a free community tool that reads Google’s Takeout files directly.
- Check how much space your photos use at photos.google.com/storage, and size your disks from that number plus 20%.
- Install Immich with Docker Compose on your server and create your account.
- At takeout.google.com, click Deselect all, tick Google Photos, choose .zip and 50GB, then click Create export.
- Download every part within about 7 days. Don’t unzip them.
- Create an API key in Immich, then run immich-go’s
upload from-google-photoscommand with--dry-runfirst, then for real. It matches each photo with its JSON file, so dates, places and albums survive. - Install the Immich app, turn on backup, and only then turn off Google Photos backup.
- Set up your backups, and delete from Google Photos only after you’ve restored from a backup once.
Our Google Photos to Immich guide covers each step in detail, from the server install to remote access and the 3-2-1 backups.
When Google Photos Is Still Better
Partial is fine. You can try Immich next to Google Photos for a few weeks before you commit, and keep Google’s backup running until you trust your own.
Photos are often the biggest thing in a Google account. To see what else is tied to yours before you delete anything, run the free scan.