2d ago

I'm looking for an alternative to Google Photos (With good search functionality)

I've switched my email etc. to https://infomaniak.com/

I'm planning on move all my media out of google photos but I really like the ability to search by a persons face, or to search "Dog" and then it'll show me all my pictures with dogs in them.

I have 100k photos, so having search functionality like this is curtail.

21 comments

Are you self-hosting? Have you looked at Immich?
- I just installed immich. It's awesome!
- Waow I didn't knew this project. Maybe a good alternative to my current solution (rsync through termux over SSH on my fileserver).
  
  Immich has amazing AI recognition and people clustering features. It's even better than Google Photos.
- I'm not self hosting at the moment, but looking at my options.
  I have a mini PC with a terabyte of storage I might leverage.
  
  Always better to self-host photos if you can, rather than need to migrate them again in the future when wherever cloud service inevitably shuts down or enshitifies.
  I'm hosting 500k photos with Immich, and the search capability is leagues better than Google Photos.

I switched to Ente a little while ago. It has E2EE as well as facial recognition (which is done locally on a device). In my initial usage, it does seem to match faces decently, but I haven't tried it for other stuff yet. Might be worth a look.
- I've been using ente, I really like it! Magic search works quite well. I pay for the hosted version, but it's open source and self-hostable.
  No partner share though. You can share albums but not everything to another person. The E2E encryption seems to make this challenging. We just share credentials.
  I also self host Photoprism and Immich. I don't know why but Immich feels the slowest of the three despite everyone else saying how fast it is. I have 80k photos/videos and I've only recently set it up so I think it might still be processing thumbnails or something.
  
  My wife and I both have Android phones, and in Ente, all new photos are automatically added to a "Camera" album. So we share those with each other, and that gives us access to everything we need. Hopefully they eventually do partner sharing (it's possible with E2EE, I'm guessing it just wasn't super high on the priority list).

I'm using the Synology NAS Photos app and it's pretty good in comparison

Ente has both a hosted and self hosted option..

Have been using PhotoPrism for a few years now. Very solid and reliable. Search functionality is pretty good too.
- I also have photoprism up and running well. Wanted to try immich but the install was overly complicated.
  
  To me, Immich seems to be going too fast for now. Hopefully the development will slow down as it matures, and I might give it a try then. But I'm very happy with PhotoPrism anyway, and don't really have a good reason to switch.

@AnonomousWolf Ente! Encrypted.
If you use my referral code below and you sign up for any paid plan and we each get an additional 10 GB free.
I imported all of my instagram and Google photos and I have only used 8.5 GB of my 50 GB plan ($3.99 mo). Very active Discord community with access to the main Dev. Great program, highly recommend!
Ente referral code: RVCAPI
Apply it in Settings → General → Referrals to get 10 GB free after you signup for a paid plan
https://ente.io/
- I've created an account with your referral thanks.
  I'm checking out the service, but I'll probably self host if I like it since I already have a mini-PC i host stuff on.

21 comments