Immich is a free, open-source photo management and backup system built as a complete Google Photos alternative. It organizes, backs up, and provides unlimited storage for your photo library on hardware you control.
Immich vs. Google Photos
Google Photos analyzes every image you upload - faces, objects, locations - and uses that analysis to build an advertising profile and train its own products. Immich runs the same core features (search, albums, mobile backup) on your own server instead, so nobody outside your household ever sees the photos or the metadata behind them.
Why It Matters for Digital Independence
Photos are personal, and there are a lot of them - which is exactly why Immich tends to be the first self-hosted service people run. It's an easy, emotionally clear entry point into self-hosting: switch this one thing, and Google's visibility into your family photos disappears completely.
Example
A family with 100,000 photos spanning 20 years moves from Google Photos to Immich on a home NAS. They get the same search, organization, and mobile app - the difference is who has access to the data behind it: just them.
Related Terms
- Self-Hosted - the core concept Immich implements
- NAS - typical storage for an Immich library
- Data Ownership - what switching to Immich protects
- Homelab - the infrastructure Immich runs on