Self-Hosted Google Photos Alternatives
Three apps cover most people's needs. The difference that matters on a VPS is how much memory the photo recognition features want. Last checked: .
The short version
- Immich: the closest to Google Photos, with mobile apps, automatic phone upload, face and object search, and sharing. Heavy: plan for several GB of RAM.
- PhotoPrism: a web-first photo browser with AI tagging. Lighter on the sync side, with no first-class phone backup the way Immich has.
- Nextcloud (Memories or Photos app): if you already run Nextcloud for files, you get photos as an add-on. Lower effort, fewer smart features.
Side by side
| Immich | PhotoPrism | Nextcloud photos | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phone auto-upload | Yes, dedicated apps | Not the focus; use another sync tool | Yes, via the Nextcloud app |
| Face and object search | Yes, with a machine learning service | Yes | Limited or add-on |
| Memory needs | High; the ML service alone can be large | Moderate to high | Moderate, shared with Nextcloud |
| Moving parts | Several containers (server, ML, database, cache) | App plus database | The Nextcloud stack you already have |
| Best for | Replacing Google Photos for a family | Browsing and organizing an existing library | Light use alongside file sync |
What size VPS?
Immich is the app that pushes people to bigger plans. Budget roughly 4 GB of RAM for it by itself, more if several people upload at once, and plenty of disk for the originals. The size calculator includes it. Storage is usually the bigger constraint: a decade of family photos is tens or hundreds of GB, and VPS disks are not huge. Check the disk on the plan before you buy, and see the VPS plans.
Immich also needs a few more services than the Compose generator handles, so follow its official Compose files instead of copying a stripped-down version.
Don't skip backups
The point of moving photos is not losing them. A self-hosted photo library with no backup is riskier than Google Photos. Keep a second copy elsewhere, and size it with the backup planner. Photos don't compress, so choose "none" for compression.
If you can't stomach running this yourself yet, start with a smaller app. The what to self-host first list has easier wins.