Ente vs HomeGallery
| Tagline | End-to-end encrypted self-hosted photo backup with native mobile apps | Self-hosted photo gallery with automatic face and object recognition |
| Category | Photo Management | Photo Management |
| Replaces | Google Photos, iCloud Photos | Google Photos, iCloud Photos |
| GitHub stars | 27k | 1k |
| Language | Docker | JavaScript |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 2/5 Easy |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose | Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 5 days ago | 1 month ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Ente
- No AI-based automatic photo tagging, scene recognition, or search by content due to E2E encryption
- Self-hosted setup requires configuring S3-compatible object storage separately
- Smaller ecosystem of third-party integrations compared to Google Photos
- Collaborative album features are less mature than Google Photos shared libraries
HomeGallery
- Initial indexing and AI processing of large libraries is CPU-intensive
- No multi-user support with individual photo collections
- No mobile backup app; relies on external sync tools
Bottom line
Choose HomeGallery if you want the lower-effort setup; choose Ente for the larger community and ecosystem. Ente has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.