Immich
Self-hosted photo and video backup and management platform with mobile apps.
Loved as a self-hosted replacement for Google Photos and Apple Photos1234, with fast browsing and search and phone apps that back up photos automatically.5678 The most common complaint is that setup and upgrades take real effort9101112, and some users hit import, metadata or resource problems with large libraries.131415
Why people recommend it
Google Photos replacement · 3
Many commenters moved off Google Photos, Apple Photos, iCloud or Nextcloud to Immich and are happy with it.
“An incredible piece of software, on par with Google Photos.”
“I love this project — I replaced Apple photos with it and it's been smooth sailing the whole way through.”
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“The gallery is very bad, now we use immich.”
Reliability · 3
Long-term users report running it for months or a year with no problems.
“Fantastic project. I have been using it for about a year and have had no problems yet.”
“It's really amazing.”
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“I am self-hosting Immich via Docker on Raspberry Pi 4 with small SSD and it's nothing but good experience so far”
Speed and search · 3
Commenters describe it as fast to browse, with strong search across large libraries.
“Immich outpaces Memories nearly everywhere: it is a lot faster and offers far better search features”
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Mobile backup · 3
The phone apps back up photos and give a better app experience than alternatives.
“I self-host Immich, and run the iPhone app to back up my photos.”
“Immich has such a better app experience imo”
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“I'm running Immich on NanoPi R6C (arm64, even lower idle power usage, still plenty fast for running Immich).”
Sharing · 3
Shared albums, public or password-protected galleries and uploads from others are appreciated.
“I love this project — I replaced Apple photos with it and it's been smooth sailing the whole way through.”
“I run a self hosted immich instance for myself and some friends.”
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“I am self-hosting Immich via Docker on Raspberry Pi 4 with small SSD and it's nothing but good experience so far”
Face recognition · 1
Face identification helps find people across an archive.
“Immich does such a good job with face identification”
Caveats and dissent
Setup and upgrades · 3
Setup can take a long time, upgrades sometimes need manual work, and only Docker is officially supported.
“I had some corruption and didn't have the fortitude to get through the debugging.”
“For some reason they only officially support the docker images but not a single clear instruction on how to set it up manually.”
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“I use it weekly, it just works and it's wonderful.”
Import and metadata · 2
Some imports silently fail metadata extraction or lose photo dates, especially with external libraries.
“yet you can't easily and safely import your photos. That's inconsistent at best.”
“I love Immich”
Resource use · 2
Large RAW libraries can consume lots of RAM and disk, and one commenter calls performance and storage weak, citing no S3 support.
“I love immich! On board since June 2026.”
“Immich sucks, sadly, performance wise and in terms of storage (they don't support S3, WTF).”
Mobile app · 2
The app has performance issues for some users and may cache the server address.
“I've been self hosting immich for the past 6 months. It's pretty awesome.”
“Best selfhosted app ever.”
Missing features · 3
Users ask for smart albums, better shared-album workflows and cross-user deduplication.
“run Immich in parallel with Google Photos right now for my family”
“I love the immich success story”
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“In immich, I can only dedupe across a single user library.”
Backup costs · 2
You still need your own backups, which can cancel out savings versus Google Photos.
“Still worth it, imo.”
“backup of your phone's pics with Immich”
Often compared with
8 moved from Google Photos to Immich
1 moved from Nextcloud to ImmichApple Photos4 comments mention both
1 moved from Apple Photos to Immich
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Immich v3.0.0 Released 13 mentions
- Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage 8 mentions
- Self-hosting my photos with Immich 8 mentions
- Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7? 3 mentions
- Ask HN: What self-hosted apps do you use daily? 3 mentions
- How do I permanently disable Google Photos pop-up prompt to backup my photos? 3 mentions
Data: immich.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 47
“I did google take out > immich and it maintained all meta data.”
“immich (iGPU + ML + another container running on my PC for additional ML resource)”
“immich”
- Navidrome - Jellyfin - Vaultwarden - Immich - pi agent. I use it through tmux and iSH on my iPhone - librechat. nice UI but honestly I probably jsut use pi more often - copyparty. to visually inspect whatever I create with pi, and to access my documents, to upload files I need on the server quickly and easily from any device
“I also run a few personal web services: Immich, Gitea, Bookstack, Jellyfin, and more.”
“I run the following services / apps.”
“Immich to connect to my self-hosted media”
“Immich sucks, sadly, performance wise and in terms of storage (they don't support S3, WTF).”
“Immich is absolutely wonderful.”
“Authelia, Immich, Jellyfin, Fusion, qBittorrent, Memos and Gitea.”
“Immich: For my photos”
“Immich has such a better app experience imo”
“I self-host Immich, and run the iPhone app to back up my photos.”
“Once I started using Immich and was able to see my old photos from across adulthood and childhood”
“Would it be difficult to extend https://github.com/immich-app/immich with this capability?”
“One of the best solutions I've ever used for photos, backups, enrichment, etc”
“upload images to Immich [1] albums”
“I haven't used Immich so it might have evolved a lot since then”
“photos in Immich”
“Immich does such a good job with face identification”
“In immich, I can only dedupe across a single user library.”
“I used to run Immich on a 2nd gen Core i3.”
“I gave Immich a fair try, but it could not replace Apple Photos for my use case.”
“I love immich! On board since June 2026.”
“Still worth it, imo.”
“I love this project — I replaced Apple photos with it and it's been smooth sailing the whole way through.”
“Fantastic project. I have been using it for about a year and have had no problems yet.”
“the people I have resolved from faces in my Immich photos”
“I use immich too, on my home cluster. I did it as a "backup" to google”
“the author(s) have done a fantastic job”
“Immich is an amazing alternative. People should give it a chance.”
“Most of the stuff I use is free and excellent.”
“I am self-hosting Immich via Docker on Raspberry Pi 4 with small SSD and it's nothing but good experience so far”
“its happily running linux and hosting Immich, among other things”
“I've been self hosting immich for the past 6 months. It's pretty awesome.”
“I love Immich”
“I use it weekly, it just works and it's wonderful.”
“I literally just discovered this program a month ago and stabilized my self-host set up just one week ago.”
“That's all the change I need with immich.”
“yet you can't easily and safely import your photos. That's inconsistent at best.”
“An incredible piece of software, on par with Google Photos.”
“I had some corruption and didn't have the fortitude to get through the debugging.”
“Immich has got to be the thing that I've spent ages setting up, use extremely infrequently but the one time a year I use it I'm so happy I did. Great software.”
“Immich outpaces Memories nearly everywhere: it is a lot faster and offers far better search features”
“I run a self hosted immich instance for myself and some friends.”
“+1, quite satisfied with immich”
“For some reason they only officially support the docker images but not a single clear instruction on how to set it up manually.”