Ente vs Immich
| Tagline | End-to-end encrypted self-hosted photo backup with native mobile apps | High-performance self-hosted photo and video backup, a Google Photos alternative |
| Category | Photo Management | Photo Management |
| Replaces | Google Photos, iCloud Photos | Google Photos, iCloud Photos |
| GitHub stars | 27k | 104k |
| Language | Docker | Docker |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose | Docker Docker Compose |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | today | today |
| 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
Immich
- Requires multi-container Docker Compose setup with GPU/CPU for ML; more resource-intensive than cloud alternatives
- Project is still pre-1.0 and explicitly warns against using as the sole backup solution
- No built-in CDN or geo-redundant storage; relies on local disk or manually configured object storage
- Collaborative shared albums lack the polish and third-party integrations of Google Photos
Bottom line
Both are a similar lift to self-host; choose Immich for the larger community and ecosystem. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Immich
High-performance self-hosted photo and video backup, a Google Photos alternative