Immich vs PhotoPrism vs LibrePhotos: какой фотоменеджер лучше в 2026?

You've decided to take back control of your photos from Google, Apple, or Amazon. Smart move. But now comes the hard part: which self-hosted photo manager should you actually use?

The three heavyweights in this space are Immich, PhotoPrism, and LibrePhotos. Each promises to be your private Google Photos replacement, but they take very different approaches. After extensive testing on real hardware with real photo libraries, we're breaking down exactly what each offers — and which one deserves a place on your server.

The Quick Verdict

In a hurry? Here's the bottom line:

• Choose Immich if you want the closest Google Photos experience with automatic phone backup as your top priority
• Choose PhotoPrism if you have an existing photo library to organize and don't need mobile auto-backup
• Choose LibrePhotos if you're on limited hardware and want a lightweight option with good face recognition

Still here? Let's dive into the details.

Head-to-Head Feature Comparison

Before we examine each app individually, here's how they stack up across the features that matter most:

Immich: The Google Photos Clone

Immich burst onto the scene in 2022 and quickly became the most popular self-hosted photo solution. Its mission is explicit: be the Google Photos you can run at home.

What Immich Does Best

Mobile Experience. This is Immich's killer feature. The iOS and Android apps are polished, fast, and work exactly like you'd expect from Google Photos. Background backup happens automatically. You can browse your library, search with natural language, and share albums — all from your phone. No other self-hosted solution comes close.

Speed. Immich is fast. The web interface loads instantly, scrolling through thousands of photos feels native, and the timeline view renders smoothly. This matters more than you'd think — slow photo apps make you not want to look at your photos.

ML Features. CLIP-based semantic search lets you find "dog on beach" or "birthday party" without any manual tagging. Face recognition groups people automatically. The "Memories" feature surfaces photos from past years, just like Google's version.

Development Velocity. Immich ships updates weekly. The changelog is packed with new features, performance improvements, and bug fixes. Backed by FUTO, a foundation funding open technology, Immich has financial sustainability that most open-source projects lack.

Where Immich Falls Short

Resource Hungry. Immich runs multiple services: the main server, a dedicated machine learning container, PostgreSQL, and Redis. You'll want at least 6-8GB of RAM for a smooth experience. A Raspberry Pi 4 will struggle; a Pi 5 or mini PC is recommended.

Still Maturing. While Immich has reached v2 and is remarkably stable, some features are still being refined. The developers are transparent about this — don't expect enterprise-grade stability yet, but do expect rapid improvement.

Immich Pros & Cons

Best For

Immich is perfect if you want to replace Google Photos completely — phone backup and all. If automatic mobile sync is non-negotiable, Immich is your only real choice.

PhotoPrism: The Photographer's Choice

PhotoPrism has been around since 2018 and takes a different approach. Rather than cloning Google Photos, it focuses on organizing and browsing an existing photo collection.

What PhotoPrism Does Best

Organization & Browsing. PhotoPrism excels at making sense of decades of photos scattered across hard drives. Point it at your existing folders, and it builds a beautiful, searchable interface without moving or duplicating files. Albums, labels, places, and moments emerge automatically.

RAW Support. Photographers will appreciate PhotoPrism's extensive RAW format support. It handles files from Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji, and more — even some obscure formats that other tools choke on. HEIC/HEIF from iPhones works seamlessly too.

Lower Resource Usage. PhotoPrism can run comfortably on 2-4GB of RAM. It's a single Go binary with a MariaDB/MySQL backend — simpler than Immich's multi-container architecture. This makes it viable on older hardware or NAS devices.

Privacy-First Design. PhotoPrism was built with privacy as a core principle. No telemetry, no cloud dependencies, no tracking. Your photos stay local, and the software doesn't phone home.

Where PhotoPrism Falls Short

No Native Mobile Backup. This is the big one. PhotoPrism doesn't have mobile apps for automatic phone backup. You can access it through a mobile browser, and you can set up external sync via Syncthing or WebDAV, but it's not the seamless experience Immich offers.

Sponsorship Model. Some features require a paid "Essentials" or "Plus" membership. While the core is fully open source, things like hardware video transcoding and advanced face recognition may require sponsorship. This is a fair trade-off (developers need to eat), but it can feel limiting compared to Immich's "everything free" approach.

Slower Development. PhotoPrism is mature and stable, but updates come less frequently than Immich. This isn't necessarily bad — stability has value — but if you want cutting-edge features, Immich moves faster.

PhotoPrism Pros & Cons

Best For

PhotoPrism shines if you already have a large photo collection on a NAS or hard drive and want to browse and organize it beautifully. If mobile backup isn't your priority and you shoot RAW, PhotoPrism is excellent.

LibrePhotos: The Lightweight Contender

LibrePhotos is a fork of the discontinued Ownphotos project. It aims to provide a lightweight, privacy-focused alternative with solid ML features.

What LibrePhotos Does Best

Low Resource Usage. LibrePhotos is the most lightweight of the three. It can run on modest hardware — even a Raspberry Pi 4 handles it reasonably well. If your server is already running other services, LibrePhotos won't hog all your RAM.

Face Recognition. LibrePhotos has surprisingly good face detection and clustering, especially for a lighter-weight application. It uses a different approach than Immich but achieves comparable results for most use cases.

Fully Open Source. MIT licensed with no paid tiers or sponsorship features. Everything is available to everyone, period.

Simple Architecture. Compared to Immich's five containers, LibrePhotos is more straightforward to deploy and maintain.

Where LibrePhotos Falls Short

No Mobile Apps. Like PhotoPrism, there's no native mobile application. You're limited to the web interface on phones.

Slower Development. LibrePhotos has a smaller development team and updates come less frequently. Some features feel unfinished, and bugs can linger longer than in Immich.

Video Support. While photos work well, video handling is more basic. If your library includes lots of video, Immich or PhotoPrism handle it better.

Smaller Community. With fewer users, there's less community support, fewer tutorials, and fewer plugins/integrations.

LibrePhotos Pros & Cons

Best For

LibrePhotos is a solid choice if you're on limited hardware and want something lighter than Immich with better ML features than a basic gallery. It's also good if you specifically prefer MIT-licensed software.

Performance Benchmarks

We tested all three on identical hardware (Intel N100 mini PC, 16GB RAM, NVMe SSD) with a 50,000-photo library:

Note: Times vary significantly based on hardware. GPU acceleration dramatically improves ML processing for Immich and PhotoPrism.

Migration Paths

Already using one? Here's how hard it is to switch:

From Google Photos

All three can import Google Takeout exports. Immich has the smoothest experience with its CLI tool that preserves metadata. PhotoPrism and LibrePhotos work but may require more manual organization of the Takeout folder structure.

From iCloud

Export via Apple's data privacy portal or use a tool like icloud-photos-downloader. All three import the resulting photos easily.

Between Each Other

Since all three can read photos from external directories without moving them, you can actually run multiple solutions simultaneously during evaluation. Point them at the same source folder, and compare the experience directly.

Hardware Recommendations

Different budgets and hardware call for different solutions:

The Verdict: Which Should You Choose?

After spending significant time with all three, here's our recommendation framework:

🏆 Choose Immich If:

• Automatic phone backup is essential
• You want the closest Google Photos experience
• You have 8GB+ RAM available
• You value rapid feature development
• Your family members need easy mobile access

📸 Choose PhotoPrism If:

• You have an existing large photo archive to organize
• Mobile backup isn't a priority
• You shoot RAW and need excellent format support
• You prefer mature, stable software
• You're on more limited hardware

🪶 Choose LibrePhotos If:

• You're on constrained hardware (Pi 4, low-RAM systems)
• You want the lightest-weight option
• You prefer MIT-licensed software
• You mainly want face recognition and organization

Our Pick: Immich

For most users in 2026, Immich is the clear winner. The mobile experience is simply unmatched — and let's be honest, your phone is where 90% of your photos come from. The ability to set up Immich, install the app, and have your photos automatically syncing to your own server within an hour is transformative.

Yes, Immich needs more resources. Yes, it's a younger project. But the pace of development is incredible, the community is massive, and the FUTO backing provides sustainability. It's not just catching up to Google Photos — in some ways, it's surpassing it.

That said, PhotoPrism remains excellent for photographers with existing collections who don't need mobile sync. And LibrePhotos deserves consideration if you're working with limited hardware.

The beautiful thing about self-hosting? You can try all three. Point them at the same photo folder, run them side by side, and see which clicks for you.

Getting Started

Ready to pick one and dive in? Here are your next steps:

• Immich: Follow our complete Immich installation guide — you'll be up and running in 15 minutes
• PhotoPrism: Check the official PhotoPrism docs for Docker setup
• LibrePhotos: See the LibrePhotos documentation for installation options

Browse more Google Photos alternatives on Hostly, or explore our full self-hosted app directory to find your next project.

FAQ

Can I run multiple photo apps at once?

Yes! Since all three can read from external directories without modifying files, you can point them at the same photo folder and run them simultaneously. This is great for evaluation.

Which has the best face recognition?

Immich currently leads in speed and accuracy. PhotoPrism is solid. LibrePhotos is good but can require more manual merging of face clusters.

Do any of these work with iCloud or Google Photos simultaneously?

They're designed as replacements, not supplements. However, you could theoretically sync your iCloud/Google exports periodically into your self-hosted solution.

What about Nextcloud Photos?

Nextcloud has a Photos app, but it's more basic — no ML features, limited organization, no mobile auto-backup. It's fine if you're already running Nextcloud and just want a gallery, but it doesn't compete with dedicated photo managers.

How do I back up my self-hosted photos?

Your photos are just files on disk — use any backup solution you'd use for other data. Restic, Borg, rsync to a second drive, or cloud backup to Backblaze B2 all work well. For Immich and PhotoPrism, also back up the database periodically.