I'm currently looking to self host some photos to get my girlfriend off of Google Photos. I'm wondering what has been good in your experience.
I never thought about self-hosting the before but a LTT video (I'm sorry) popped up in my feed and I got curious.
I looked into Ente.io and PhotoSync so far but unsure if there are any better options. Also saw that LibrePhotos exist but I haven't looked into it yet.
What are you using? Have you had any issues? Missing features etc.?
However, because of the fast dev cycle, it has a lot of breaking changes, and needs regular maintenance (most notably for me, postgres docker changes. Especially if you are not giving it it's own postgres instance and using their provided docker compose.)
You could stay pegged to a single version, but the mobile app also doesn't have full backwards compatibility with server versions, which results in a slew of other problems (how do I do a fresh install of an older app version on a new device?)
But if you are willing to keep up and perform semi-regular maintenance, immich is great, and the rapid dev cycle means more new features faster!
Thank you! I will try Immich our and see how it feels, if it's just quick fixes it shouldn't be an issue. But if it's too much I might just try out Ente 🙏
My parents like it, once every so often I update their docker and apps (on the same day). Its not always straight forward (I just mean you have to visit their github), but ez enough.
Unfortunately my next choice (afaik) would be NextCloud ... aaaand let's leave it at that.
I'm scared to these 'breaking changes' even though I'm not exactly a self hosting newbie. That's because I don't have a proper 3-2-1 backup and I'm afraid I might lose my photos or settings. I've been exploring of setting up immich through a homeserver management tool like runtipi that allows taking backups separately that can be reverted to, in case something goes wrong. Anyone aware of any negatives about that?
It wasn't that the upgrades were hard so much as it felt like everytime I tried to open the app on my phone, it errored out because either it or the server needed to be upgraded and the versions weren't compatible.
Yeah, this is why I jumped ship to Immich last year. I was donating to PP, with the understanding that donating users would get access to multi-user features when they happened.
Then they put them behind a paid recurring subscription. For self-hosted users. That move broke all the trust with me.
Definitely check this summary out: https://meichthys.github.io/foss_photo_libraries/. Everyone's use case and priorities will be a little different, but I'd vote for Immich as a Google Photos replacement that looks nice and is very easy to use. I was awestruck by the facial and object recognition, which wasn't even a feature I particularly cared about.
It wasn't sold, it's being funded. There's a big difference. And the group behind the funding is a huge supporter of FOSS. They're gonna be "selling" immich licenses soon, but they're also going to keep all the source code open and available for anyone to download, modify, or use however they want.
The owner of the name and repo has changed hands in exchange for money, and is now going to be pushing licences to use it. You can say that is not "sold" if you like, but its the same to me.
I don't know why people recommend Immich. I found it to be the most bare-bone photo app I've ever used. It feels ten+ years old. I tried really hard to make it work but Plex photos is about 20% better and it still sucks.
I don't remember much about plex photos, but facial (and object) recognition, photo map, easy sharing through albums (without the other person needing an account), and being open source are some features I imagine plex photos does not have.
it seems barebones still, because it is a very young app, and the UI is not great, especially on mobile.
It is the best replacement for Google photos that I have seen though.
Fair enough. Plex may not have the bells and whistles but it's simple and intuitive to use. I've also tried the QuMagie app on my QNAP which does have all those features but found it to be a bit more cumbersome than it was worth.
I tried Google Photos briefly as well and was very shocked at how bad it is, compared to Apple Photos. It took me several days just to figure out how to delete more than one picture at a time. I have to assume it's much more robust on an Android than on an iPhone but even their web interface was horrible.
Depending on what exactly you're looking for, Photostructure might be a good option. It's got a great UI for viewing photos, and it's meant to play well with other Metadata software.
Another question: I set up the Immich docker image and I'm using Mullvad VPN, however Mullvad VPN removed in-app port forwarding last year. I'm curious whether there is a solution to use Split Tunneling for Immich via another VPN to setup secure remote access outside of the home network?
I just got this working today and can say it's quite an elegant solution. It means anyone with a Google account (that I allow through Cloudflare settings) can take advantage of immich. I plan to be the storage server for my family so they can have automatic photo backups.
If you decide to go that route and have questions, hit me up. I spent a while troubleshooting issues caused by not creating a SaaS application in Cloudflare, so read the directions exactly.
Thank you for the comment, a very interesting solution! I'm thinking of using Google as little as possible however. I would like to look into how to setup some access from outside the network via some VPN shenanigans.
I was also looking at automating backups with Cron - both DB and images to other disks and devices.
I got Immich up and running but have had some stuff come in the way to spend more time with it.
Mullvad is great for outbound VPN, but inbound is a PITA without port forwarding (as you've said). I just host a Wireguard container for inbound connectivity now, and it works flawlessly.