Self-hosted alternatives to Google Photos
Free unlimited storage ended in 2021, and photo libraries are the hardest data to migrate once they grow.
Below are 10 open-source projects that cover the same ground, each scored 0–100 on how actively it is actually maintained — commit volume, release cadence and recent trend. 7 of the 10 are currently rated healthy or better. Ordering reflects that score, not sponsorship.
| Project | Health | Activity (11 mo) | Stars | Licence | Last release |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ente An end-to-end encrypted photo-sharing platform (alternative to Google Photos, Apple Photos). | Thriving · 98 | 29k | AGPL-3.0 | 24 Sept 2026 | |
| PhotoPrism Personal photo management powered by Go and Google TensorFlow. Browse, organize, and share your personal phot | Thriving · 96 | 40k | AGPL-3.0 | 19 Sept 2026 | |
| Immich Photo and video backup solution directly from your mobile phone (alternative to Google Photos). | Thriving · 94 | 115k | AGPL-3.0 | 15 Sept 2026 | |
| Lychee Grid and album based photo-management-system. | Thriving · 82 | 4.3k | MIT | 25 Sept 2026 | |
| Immich Kiosk Lightweight slideshow for running on kiosk devices and browsers that uses Immich as a data source. | Healthy · 78 | 1.7k | GPL-3.0 | 25 Sept 2026 | |
| Nextcloud Memories Fast, modern and advanced photo management suite. Runs as a Nextcloud app. | Healthy · 74 | 3.8k | AGPL-3.0 | 25 Sept 2026 | |
| LibrePhotos Photo management service with a slight focus on cool graphs (alternative to Google Photos). | Healthy · 73 | 8.1k | MIT | 16 Sept 2026 | |
| Photofield Experimental fast photo viewer. | Steady · 66 | 608 | MIT | 17 Aug 2026 | |
| Thumbor A smart imaging service and enables on-demand cropping, resizing, applying filters and optimizing images. | Steady · 62 | 11k | MIT | 30 May 2026 | |
| Photoview Simple and user-friendly photo gallery for personal servers. It is made for photographers and aims to provide | At risk · 33 | 6.5k | GPL-3.0 | 23 Jun 2024 |
How these were picked
Every project listed here is open source and can run entirely on hardware you control. We start from the categories that match Google Photos's job — Photo Galleries, Media Management — then rank by health score so that a popular-but-abandoned project never appears above a smaller one that is actively shipping. The scoring method is documented in full.
The scores are recomputed from repository data on every rebuild, so this page reflects the state of these projects as of 1 Oct 2026 — not the day it was written.
Ente
An end-to-end encrypted photo-sharing platform (alternative to Google Photos, Apple Photos).
Best fit: Privacy-conscious individuals who want to replace commercial cloud photo storage with an encrypted, self-hosted solution.
Worth knowing: Ente requires careful key management, as losing your encryption credentials means permanent loss of access to your stored photos.
PhotoPrism
Personal photo management powered by Go and Google TensorFlow. Browse, organize, and share your personal photo collection, using the latest technologies to automatically tag and find pictures.
Best fit: It suits individuals who want to organise large, self-hosted image collections with automated tagging without relying on external cloud services.
Worth knowing: Running TensorFlow inference locally can demand significant CPU or memory resources, and the AGPL-3.0 licence may impose constraints if you plan to modify and distribute the code.
Immich
Photo and video backup solution directly from your mobile phone (alternative to Google Photos).
Best fit: This is a strong fit for individuals seeking to replace commercial cloud photo storage with an on-premises alternative that prioritises data privacy.
Worth knowing: The software is under active development, which means schema changes and breaking updates can occur frequently and require careful upgrade procedures.
Lychee
Grid and album based photo-management-system.
Best fit: Self-hosters who want a dedicated, lightweight web application specifically for managing photo albums without relying on third-party cloud services.
Worth knowing: You will need to manage your own storage volumes for large image libraries, and performance may depend heavily on your server's hardware when generating thumbnails.
Immich Kiosk
Lightweight slideshow for running on kiosk devices and browsers that uses Immich as a data source.
Best fit: It is well-suited for setting up dedicated photo frames, lobby displays, or wall-mounted screens using an existing Immich server as the backend.
Worth knowing: As a specialised display client rather than a full gallery management tool, its functionality is strictly limited to slideshow playback. You will need to manage your photo organisation and user permissions entirely within the upstream Immich server.