Immich immich-app/immich

Self-hosted Google Photos-style app with background phone backup, face recognition, CLIP search, shared albums, timeline and map.

Creator kit + Compare GitHub ↗ Install guide (official) ↗

Immich at a glance

Checked 16 Oct 2026

Immich (116k stars, v3.3.3 Oct 2026) is the closest self-hosted match to Google Photos: Android and iOS apps back up photos and videos in the background, and the web and mobile apps offer a timeline, map, memories, shared and public albums, partner sharing and search by faces, objects and CLIP text. AGPLv3; all features free, with an optional one-time product key to support development. Runs with Docker Compose on Linux; needs 6 GB RAM (4 GB with machine learning off). The default face models come from InsightFace and are licensed for non-commercial research only.

Cite this pageRepoQuarry. “Immich.” Checked 16 Oct 2026. https://repoquarry.dev/projects/immich

How much of Google Photos does it replace?

4 of 4 jobs. Covers backup, search, sharing and timeline/map; you supply the server, storage and backups.

Automatic phone photo and video backup Full replacement

Search photos by faces Full replacement

Shared albums and links Full replacement

Timeline and map browsing Full replacement

How much of Dropbox does it replace?

1 of 5 jobs. Replaces camera upload only.

Desktop folder sync across devices Not covered

Share links and shared folders Not covered

File version history and recovery Not covered

Browse and manage files in a web app Not covered

Mobile camera upload and backup Full replacement

For desktop folder sync across devices, share links and shared folders, file version history and recovery, browse and manage files in a web app, see other Dropbox alternatives. You may also need to build an interface, an API server and hosting yourself.

Facts, with sources

Every answer links to where we found it. We read the documentation; we did not install it.

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QuestionAnswerSourceChecked

Runs on my machine? Self-hosted with Docker Compose docker compose up -d docs.immich.app · docker-compose ↗ today

Code licence AGPL-3.0 (copyleft) Immich is available as open source under the terms of the GNU AGPL v3 License. docs.immich.app · FAQ ↗ today

Model weights licence Default facial recognition models (InsightFace buffalo_l) are for non-commercial research only; ML can be disabled This repo contains the buffalo_l facial detection and recognition models released by InsightFace. huggingface.co · buffalo_l ↗ today

Commercial use AGPL code is fine commercially, but the default InsightFace face models are non-commercial; FUTO also sets commercial guidelines The pretrained models provided with this library are for non-commercial research only github.com · python-package#license ↗ today

Paid services needed? None; optional one-time product key supports development and unlocks nothing Don't worry, all features will be free, forever! Nothing will ever be put behind any paywalls. docs.immich.app · support-the-project ↗ today

Hardware Minimum 6 GB RAM and 2 cores (8 GB, 4 cores recommended); 4 GB works with machine learning disabled RAM: Minimum 6GB, recommended 8GB. docs.immich.app · requirements ↗ today

Operating systems Server on Linux recommended; Windows and macOS via Docker Desktop (discouraged); Android and iOS apps Non-Linux OSes tend to provide a poor Docker experience and are strongly discouraged. docs.immich.app · requirements ↗ today

Setup effort Medium; download docker-compose.yml and .env from the release, then docker compose up wget -O docker-compose.yml https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml docs.immich.app · docker-compose ↗ today