Immich
Photos & MediaA self-hosted photo and video manager with mobile apps that back up media from your phone to your own server.
Open-source alternative to:
What the free edition leaves out
The free edition covers the features teams usually need; we found nothing important held back. “Not confirmed” means the official pages we read did not say, so we do not guess.
| Feature | Free edition | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSO / SAML | Not confirmed | The docs describe sign-in through OpenID Connect providers (Authentik, Authelia, Okta, Google, Keycloak named). SAML is not mentioned. | Source ↗ |
| Role-based access control | Not confirmed | The OAuth page maps a user's role from the identity provider to either user or admin. No finer roles are described. | Source ↗ |
| Audit logs | Not confirmed | Not mentioned on the pages read. | Source ↗ |
| Multi-user / teams | Free | The OAuth page describes users registering and signing in through an identity provider. The support page says all features are free and nothing will be put behind a paywall. | Source ↗ |
| Backups and restore | Free | Immich makes automatic database dumps and can restore from the web interface under Administration > Maintenance. Dumps hold only metadata, so photos and videos need a separate filesystem backup. | Source ↗ |
| API access | Not confirmed | The site links to an Immich API reference; its terms were not read. | Source ↗ |
| Support SLA | Not confirmed | Support links go to docs, FAQ, GitHub, Discord and Reddit. No SLA is described. | Source ↗ |
Best for
People who want a Google Photos style app, with phone backup and a web gallery, on a home server or VPS they control.
Why choose it over Google Photos
Phone apps back up photos and videos automatically to your own server, and the code is AGPL-3.0. The docs state all features are free forever and nothing will be put behind a paywall, with purchasable licenses described as a way to support the project. Multiple users can sign in through OpenID Connect providers, and the server makes automatic database dumps.
Where it falls short
The README opens with a warning to always follow a 3-2-1 backup plan for your photos and videos. Database dumps hold only metadata, not photos, so you must back up the upload folder yourself, and the docs say not to touch the files in the storage folders. Restoring replaces the current database and may need migrations across versions. A Docker host with at least 6GB of RAM and 2 CPU cores is recommended. The FAQ says some network features in the mobile app, such as self-signed certificates and custom headers, are experimental and unsupported. SAML is not mentioned in the docs read.
Open-source alternative to
- Google Photos — Immich can be used in place of Google Photos to back up and browse phone photos and videos on a server you run yourself.
Category
Photos & MediaTopics
Tech stack
TypeScript
Dart
Svelte
DockerLanguages as reported by GitHub for the repository.
