Immich
A superb personal photo archive with mobile backup, metadata, albums, search, maps, and sharing on storage you control; public portfolio polish is modest.
Technical Profile & Specs
verified 2026-08-11
- Cost
- $0 / forever (Open Source)
- License
- AGPL-3.0
- Hosting Model
- Self-host (your server)
- Platforms
- mobilewebself-hostedself-host, real ops
- Installation
- Official Docker Compose stack with the server, machine-learning service, Redis, and PostgreSQL
- Operational Setup
- Docker Compose, roughly 6–8 GB RAM, local PostgreSQL storage rather than a network share, persistent media and database paths, and TLS or a reverse proxy for remote access
- Where Your Data Lives
- Originals and generated library, upload, thumbnail, profile, video, and backup files live under the configured upload location; users, albums, metadata, and embeddings live in PostgreSQL, and ML models are cached locally
- The Catch / Trade-off
- It is a superb private archive but does not reproduce Flickr's public social graph, groups, discovery, comments, licensing marketplace or portfolio audience.
Replaces 1 paid app
up to $11/mo ($132/yr) in subscriptions
Immich FAQ
Common questions
Is Immich free and open source?+
Immich is an open-source tool licensed under AGPL-3.0 that runs on self-host. A superb personal photo archive with mobile backup, metadata, albums, search, maps, and sharing on storage you control; public portfolio polish is modest.
What paid software does Immich replace?+
Immich serves as a free replacement for 1 paid SaaS application: Flickr Pro, saving up to $11/month ($132/year) in subscription bills.
How do you install and set up Immich?+
Installation: Official Docker Compose stack with the server, machine-learning service, Redis, and PostgreSQL. Setup notes: Docker Compose, roughly 6–8 GB RAM, local PostgreSQL storage rather than a network share, persistent media and database paths, and TLS or a reverse proxy for remote access
What is the catch or trade-off with Immich?+
It is a superb private archive but does not reproduce Flickr's public social graph, groups, discovery, comments, licensing marketplace or portfolio audience.