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Google Photos alternatives

2 projects to consider for your Google Photos workflows.

2 open source

Explore Immich and Ente. Each takes a different approach to your Google Photos workflows. Read its capabilities and limitations to find the right fit.

Catalogue facts checked August 31, 2026

Immich

Self-hosted photo and video backup for your own server

Open sourceAGPL-3.0Self-hosted

People leaving Google Photos who can run a small server will get the most from Immich. Its full-resolution phone backup, photo and video timeline, natural-language search, and free sharing live on storage you own under AGPL-3.0. The price of that independence is operational responsibility, so anyone who wants automatic backups with zero maintenance should stay with a hosted library instead. If you can deploy Docker Compose and tend backups, this is the ownership tradeoff that pays off.[1][2][3]

Good fit. Google Photos leavers wanting ownership: the backup, timeline, search, and sharing workflow survives intact with no per-month software fee and no vendor lock on the files.[1][2]

Keep in mind. People who want zero-maintenance backups: updates, database care, disk growth, and off-site backup copies sit with you, which is real operational work.[1]

Repository review signals: unknown status, very stale · Observed August 31, 2026.

Read project review Official website
Sources and editorial review

Source research. Reviewed on October 9, 2026. Written by Sanjib Sah. AI assisted; reviewed by a human editor.

We have not run or tested this product.

  1. Immich - Self-hosted photo and video management

    official · Observed October 9, 2026

    Official homepage; self-hosted backup, timeline, search, face recognition, sharing, free stance

  2. Immich Documentation

    official · Observed October 9, 2026

    Official documentation; Docker Compose deployment, jobs, v2.0.0 breaking changes and upgrade guide

  3. immich-app/immich on GitHub

    official · Observed October 9, 2026

    Official repository; AGPL-3.0 license, TypeScript codebase, star count observed at read time

Ente

End-to-end encrypted photo storage across devices

Open sourceAGPL-3.0Self-hosted

Ente fits privacy-minded households replacing Google Photos with encrypted backup that still feels like a normal photo app. Its device-side encryption, original-quality preservation, and on-device search carry the recommendation. The caution is longevity: one independent review flags the small team, so decades-scale archivists should weigh that. If zero-knowledge storage outranks free-tier scale, start with the 10GB free plan.[1][2][3][4]

Good fit. Privacy-first households leaving Google Photos: zero-knowledge encryption plus original-quality backup removes the core reason many people stay, and family plans cover the whole home.[1][2]

Keep in mind. Buyers needing a decades-scale longevity guarantee: one independent review notes the small team behind the product, so archivists planning in decades should weigh that single-sourced caution.[1]

Repository review signals: unknown status, very stale · Observed August 31, 2026.

Read project review Official website
Sources and editorial review

Source research. Reviewed on October 9, 2026. Written by Sanjib Sah. AI assisted; reviewed by a human editor.

We have not run or tested this product.

Five inspected sources (three official, two independent comparisons/reviews); zero inspectable original Reddit/G2 user reports; one attempted Reddit thread read and one G2 page read both blocked. Zero-report sample: no original Reddit or G2 user report could be inspected (both blocked reads), so no user sentiment, prevalence, or version coverage can be inferred. App-store ratings below are secondhand via one independent review, not verified firsthand. Vendor-comparison pricing is single-sourced.

  1. Ente - Private Google Photos alternative

    official · Observed October 9, 2026

    Official homepage: E2EE photo storage, private sharing, apps for iOS/Mac/Android/Web/Windows/Linux/F-Droid, family plans, on-device ML (face recognition, magic search), open source, preserved quality.

  2. Ente - Private, Encrypted Photos

    official · Observed October 9, 2026

    Official product site: 10GB free signup, on-device AI features, EU 3x replication, audited crypto, self-hosting option, Photos/Auth/Locker apps.

  3. ente-io/ente repository README

    official · Observed October 9, 2026

    Official monorepo README at 88.6k stars: E2EE, preserved quality, shareable links, family plans, audited, self-hostable AGPL server, Auth 2FA companion, opt-out telemetry.

  4. Ente Photos: The Private Google Photos Alternative That Actually Works

    community · Observed October 9, 2026 · Published October 6, 2026

    Independent review (Oct 6, 2026): 4.6-star app-store ratings cited, 10GB free verified, small-team longevity caution and paid-only extras critiqued.

  5. Alternatives to Google Photos: The Full De-Googling Round-Up

    community · Observed October 9, 2026 · Published June 19, 2026

    Third-party round-up (Jun 19, 2026): Ente from $2.49/mo, zero-knowledge encryption, on-device ML, tied second; r/degoogle consensus secondhand.

Compare Google Photos alternatives

Known catalogue facts at a glance. Columns with no reviewed values are omitted. “Not reviewed” means unknown, not that a capability is absent.

Known facts for Google Photos alternatives
ProjectLicense policyHosting
ImmichAGPL-3.0 · OSI-approvedSelf-hosted
EnteAGPL-3.0 · OSI-approvedSelf-hosted

Before you switch

  • Check that the project covers the workflows and data you need to move.
  • Confirm that the license terms fit how you plan to run, modify, and distribute it.
  • Choose between self-hosting responsibility and a reviewed managed option.
  • Open the project page for repository freshness, review dates, and any unresolved requirements.

Browse by requirements

Explore projects grouped around common requirements.

Best overall by organic score

Immich, Ente

About Google Photos

Google Photos backs up everything a phone takes and then makes it findable. Search understands objects, places, and people without any tagging, and the timeline handles libraries in the hundreds of thousands without stalling.

The bargain is explicit: storage counts against a Google account quota, the machine learning runs on Google's infrastructure rather than the device, and the library lives somewhere you cannot inspect. For most people the convenience wins, which is exactly why the self-hosted alternatives have such a high bar to clear.

Google · 15 GB free across a Google account, then from $1.99/month · Checked August 31, 2026

Official website
How this list is ordered

Recommended · Organic catalogue order.

A deterministic editorial score using relationship confidence, category fit, logarithmic popularity, as-of maintenance and freshness, with bounded anomaly quarantine and known-data penalties. Payment is fixed at zero.

Payment does not affect organic ranking. Order is a starting point, not a universal recommendation.

OpenAlternative organic alternatives v4 · version 4

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