Maybe try Immich? You can self host it or maybe host it somewhere

Immich is the best I’ve found. Has native mobile apps that can auto upload pics/videos and you can use their CLI utility to bulk import large libraries if you want. Very active development too.

Edit: sorry, didn’t see the cloud storage requirement. Immich is purely a photo hosting/upload service.

Nextcloud is a service that ticks most if those boxes (if not all). You can self host if that’s your thing or pay for a hosted service.

I have been using ente for around two years now and it has been working well. It’s not perfect, but has been improving quickly. Your photos are end-to-end encrypted so you are the only one who can access them. The app is also open source and available on F-Droid which is awesome. The prices aren’t the best, but privacy isn’t free. You either need to pay for it, or put the time and effort into hosting it yourself like Immich or Nextcloud. Ente does have a 1 year free trial with 1GB of storage to test it out.

Edit: After rereading your post, I saw you wanted general cloud storage as well. Maybe give Filen a try. It is also end-to-end encrypted and open source. It doesn’t have any photo specific features like albums since it is a generic cloud storage service, but it does have a photos tab to view your uploaded photos.

Nextcloud (either self-hosted, or via a provider) offers a photo gallery option.

I use immich, it works the best out of anything I’ve tried (including nextcloud which randomly didn’t upload pictures for some reason)

If you don’t wanna self host it, there are some services which will host it (and other projects) for you (the only one I can remember is pikapods.com, never used them though)

Synology photos is exactly that, comes with synology nas.

For the cloud storage part I can tell that Nextcloud serves the purpose fine.

I have configured our Android devices with Nextcloud app to upload new images directly into the my-nextcloud-user/files/SofortUpload folder. It has a structure /SofortUpload/ImageFolder/year/months/images, so for example /SofortUpload/Camera/2023/08/IMG_20230803_174100.jpg

(“Sofort” is German for “immediate”)

This auto-upload has been configured and happens (in our cases) also for the mobile device folders Pictures, Screenshots, Stickers, Telegram and Wallpaper.

For the timeline and viewing part I would also take suggestions, as having not yet found a good solution.

Cryptee has photo storage that lets you sort it by date. You need to pay for bigger storage though

Just found this: https://stingle.org/

Only three bucks a month for 100gb aaaand it has F-Droid distro

I’ve been enjoying Jottacloud. It’s got a timeline, ai search, a sync folder (for auto syncing files to all your devices), and automatic backup from your camera roll.

I also liked cryp.ee when I tested it but it can’t do automatic backup.

Signup to filen. It has got autoupload of photos and 20GB initial free storage

Probably no better than google privacy wise etc but Amazon photos covers all of your bases, and is included as part of the prime subscription. So if you are a prime member you may already have a “free” alternative. There is no storage limit for regular photos either.

It’s actually the reason I became a prime member here in Japan, because just for the photo storage it was much cheaper than other cloud options like apple etc.