Immich

Self-hosted photo library with AI search and face recognition.

Editorially reviewedChecked Oct 2026How we review·5 visited this week

productivity#practical-oss#open-source#self-hosted#photos

Visit Website

Free plan API Self-hosted Offline mode

Toolglade’s take

Immich has matured into the standout self-hosted Google Photos replacement, with genuinely useful local AI search and face recognition and a polished mobile experience. It is best for self-hosters who already run a home server and take backups seriously. Skip it if you are not prepared to manage a Docker stack and your own backups, because unlike Google Photos there is no safety net if your server fails.

Should you use Immich?

Biggest strength: Full Google Photos-style experience you host yourself, keeping photos private
Biggest weakness: You are responsible for your own backups; a server failure can lose irreplaceable memories
Pricing: Free plan
Top alternative: Dovetail · see all

Facts & pricing last checked October 2026. How we review

About Immich

Immich is a self-hosted alternative to Google Photos for backing up and browsing your photos and videos. It adds AI-powered search and face recognition so you can find images by what is in them. Everything runs on your own server, keeping your library private.

Immich is a self-hosted alternative to Google Photos: a high-performance system for backing up, organizing, and browsing your photos and videos on your own server. It comes with slick mobile apps for iOS and Android that automatically back up new photos the moment you open them, plus a web interface, multi-user support, shared albums, and a map view of where shots were taken. Its AI features run locally on your server rather than in the cloud. It uses CLIP-based machine learning so you can search your library by describing what is in a photo, and it performs facial recognition to group people together. Immich is used by privacy-conscious households and self-hosters who want the convenience of Google Photos without handing their memories to a big tech company. It is licensed under AGPL-3.0.

Weighing your options?See how Immich compares to the alternatives.

Pros & cons

Pros

Full Google Photos-style experience you host yourself, keeping photos private
Automatic phone backup via polished native iOS and Android apps
Local AI: CLIP-powered natural-language search and on-device face recognition
Multi-user accounts, shared and partner albums, and a global map view
Fully open source under AGPL-3.0 with a very active development community

Cons

You are responsible for your own backups; a server failure can lose irreplaceable memories
Requires running and maintaining a Docker-based server stack
The machine-learning features benefit from more RAM and ideally a capable CPU or GPU
AGPL-3.0 has copyleft obligations that matter if you modify and offer it as a service