Immich

Immich is a free, open source photo and video management platform and the most popular self-hosted Google Photos alternative in the homelab community. It gives you automatic mobile backup, AI-powered search, facial recognition, and a polished timeline interface that genuinely rivals what Google and Apple offer, while keeping every photo and video on your own hardware with no subscription fees and no cloud dependency. You deploy it on your home server using Docker Compose, and it runs comfortably on everything from a Synology NAS or QNAP device to a mini PC or Raspberry Pi.

Where most self-hosted photo tools feel like a compromise, Immich does not. It uses CLIP-based machine learning for semantic search, meaning you can type "dog on beach" or "birthday cake" and it will find the right photos without you ever having added a single tag. Facial recognition automatically clusters and identifies people across your entire library, and the mobile apps for iOS and Android handle background backup silently the moment you take a shot. It also supports RAW file formats including CR2, NEF, ARW, and DNG, as well as HEIC and HEIF for iPhone users, and hardware-accelerated video transcoding via VAAPI, NVENC, and Raspberry Pi hardware encoders.

For homelabbers who have hit the 15GB Google Photos limit or feel uneasy about a tech company holding decades of personal photos, Immich is the tool that makes leaving straightforward. It runs as a set of Docker containers, each handling a specific role including the API server, machine learning, PostgreSQL database, and Redis cache, making it easy to manage, update, and back up independently. Because it is fully self-hosted and open source, there are no storage limits beyond the hardware you already own, and your photos are never used to train anyone else's models.

Key Features

• Automatic mobile backup for iOS and Android with background sync
• CLIP-based semantic search and AI object detection
• Facial recognition with people grouping and birthday tracking
• RAW file support (CR2, NEF, ARW, DNG) and HEIC/HEIF support
• Hardware video transcoding (VAAPI, NVENC, Raspberry Pi)
• Shared albums, partner sharing, and multi-user libraries
• Map view with reverse geocoding using embedded EXIF GPS data
• Docker Compose deployment with Synology, QNAP, and Unraid support

Use Cases

Immich is the go-to self-hosted replacement for Google Photos for homelabbers who have outgrown cloud storage limits or want their family photos off third-party servers and onto a Synology NAS or home server running Docker. It works especially well for photographers shooting RAW on a DSLR or mirrorless camera who want smart organisation, facial recognition, and searchable metadata without paying for Adobe Lightroom or Apple iCloud. If you are already running Docker at home and want a self-hosted PhotoPrism alternative with a polished mobile app, faster performance, and stronger AI features, Immich is the most complete open source option in the photos and backup category.