Hello everyone!
I’m currently looking to self host some photos to get my girlfriend off of Google Photos. I’m wondering what has been good in your experience.
I never thought about self-hosting the before but a LTT video (I’m sorry) popped up in my feed and I got curious.
I looked into Ente.io and PhotoSync so far but unsure if there are any better options. Also saw that LibrePhotos exist but I haven’t looked into it yet.
What are you using? Have you had any issues? Missing features etc.?
Immich is by far the best and most convenient.
/end of thread
As we used to say.
+1 to immich
However, because of the fast dev cycle, it has a lot of breaking changes, and needs regular maintenance (most notably for me, postgres docker changes. Especially if you are not giving it it’s own postgres instance and using their provided docker compose.)
You could stay pegged to a single version, but the mobile app also doesn’t have full backwards compatibility with server versions, which results in a slew of other problems (how do I do a fresh install of an older app version on a new device?)
But if you are willing to keep up and perform semi-regular maintenance, immich is great, and the rapid dev cycle means more new features faster!
Luckily all of the changes so far have been super easy and quick, they’re very good about posting detailed info on what to change.
Thank you! I will try Immich our and see how it feels, if it’s just quick fixes it shouldn’t be an issue. But if it’s too much I might just try out Ente 🙏
Can you make immich so that when you click on the map, you get a grid of relevant photos rather than full size swipe?
Can you make immich not show the stupid white lines around every country?
This is a fair description.
My parents like it, once every so often I update their docker and apps (on the same day). Its not always straight forward (I just mean you have to visit their github), but ez enough.
Unfortunately my next choice (afaik) would be NextCloud … aaaand let’s leave it at that.
I’m scared to these ‘breaking changes’ even though I’m not exactly a self hosting newbie. That’s because I don’t have a proper 3-2-1 backup and I’m afraid I might lose my photos or settings. I’ve been exploring of setting up immich through a homeserver management tool like runtipi that allows taking backups separately that can be reverted to, in case something goes wrong. Anyone aware of any negatives about that?
how do I do a fresh install of an older app version on a new device?
You can directly use the files from the github repo, just look for the release your server is on and install that apk.
Everyone seems to love immich, but I found the rapid development cycle combined with the version incompatibilities annoying.
Ente is seeming like a nice alternative so far and will hopefully be lower maintenance.
I think Immich has grown out of the most difficult upgrades now. Most changes now are just removing lines from the stack.
It wasn’t that the upgrades were hard so much as it felt like everytime I tried to open the app on my phone, it errored out because either it or the server needed to be upgraded and the versions weren’t compatible.
I love this app.
Immich
This is the correct answer
Immich! Am still testing it, but it seems to have most features I need, like an iOS client with automatic backups and even server side face recognition ( your server naturally)
I use Photoprism, mainly because it seems stable so far, and it’s good enough for my needs
Ditto, though I’m getting more and more resentful by the day at the lack of multi user support. I’m not going to donate to them again.
Yeah, this is why I jumped ship to Immich last year. I was donating to PP, with the understanding that donating users would get access to multi-user features when they happened.
Then they put them behind a paid recurring subscription. For self-hosted users. That move broke all the trust with me.
They fucking what? I need to get off the couch and cancel my support too
Yep - they introduced paid subscription tiers and put multi-user support into those: https://www.photoprism.app/editions#compare
Same here, Been using photoprism past few years also, loving it so far!! Few quirks but constantly being worked on
Same, just use FolderSync to get photos to it. Works like a cham.
Definitely check this summary out: https://meichthys.github.io/foss_photo_libraries/. Everyone’s use case and priorities will be a little different, but I’d vote for Immich as a Google Photos replacement that looks nice and is very easy to use. I was awestruck by the facial and object recognition, which wasn’t even a feature I particularly cared about.
Immich all the way my dude.
Thank you all for the responses! I will take look into Immich and if maintenance is too much of a hassle I might try out Ente!
Piwigo.
I-fucking-mmich!
Depending on what exactly you’re looking for, Photostructure might be a good option. It’s got a great UI for viewing photos, and it’s meant to play well with other Metadata software.
Another question: I set up the Immich docker image and I’m using Mullvad VPN, however Mullvad VPN removed in-app port forwarding last year. I’m curious whether there is a solution to use Split Tunneling for Immich via another VPN to setup secure remote access outside of the home network?
https://github.com/immich-app/immich/discussions/8299
I just got this working today and can say it’s quite an elegant solution. It means anyone with a Google account (that I allow through Cloudflare settings) can take advantage of immich. I plan to be the storage server for my family so they can have automatic photo backups.
If you decide to go that route and have questions, hit me up. I spent a while troubleshooting issues caused by not creating a SaaS application in Cloudflare, so read the directions exactly.
Thank you for the comment, a very interesting solution! I’m thinking of using Google as little as possible however. I would like to look into how to setup some access from outside the network via some VPN shenanigans.
I was also looking at automating backups with Cron - both DB and images to other disks and devices.
I got Immich up and running but have had some stuff come in the way to spend more time with it.
Yeah, I would prefer not to use Google, so I’m going to figure out how to use another authenticator. I wish Proton had the ability to be an authenticator, but I haven’t seen a way to do that yet.
But all my family has a Google account, so it just makes things easier.
Mullvad is great for outbound VPN, but inbound is a PITA without port forwarding (as you’ve said). I just host a Wireguard container for inbound connectivity now, and it works flawlessly.
I’m confused as to how outbound and inbound would be different. Would the traffic not go from the VPN endpoint to your device?
This may take us down a bit of a rabbit hole but, generally speaking, it comes down to how you route traffic.
My firewall has an always-on VPN connected to Mullvad. When certain servers (that I specify) connect to the outside, I use routing rules to ensure those connections go via the VPN tunnel. Those routes are only for connectivity to outside (non-LAN) addresses.
At the same time, I host a server inside that accepts incoming Wireguard client VPN connections. Once I’m connected (with my phone) to that server, my phone appears as an internal client. So the routing rules for Mullvad don’t apply - the servers are simply responding back to a LAN address.
I hope that explains it a bit better - I’m not aware of your level of networking knowledge, so I’m trying not to over-complicate just yet.
I also route everything through my pfsense firewall to mullvad VPN. I’ve been looking at various ways to access the internal network from the outside internet safely, and I’m a bit hesitant to open that hole just yet. Cloudflare tunnel seems like the easiest option but apparently they can see everything you put through the tunnel and I’m not real comfortable with that.
Does one need a dynamic dns to use wireguard to tunnel back in, or is there another way of ensuring you can connect to the correct location? Does the wireguard server run on docker?
You do need to be able to reach your public IP to be able to VPN back in. I have a static IP, so no real concerns there. But, even if I didn’t, I have a Python script that updates a Route53 DNS record for me in my own domain - a self-hosted dynamic DNS really.
You certainly can run Wireguard server in a docker container - the good folks over at Linuxserver have just the repo for you.
Thanks, I’ll give this a shot in the coming week!
PIA allows split tunneling in their app
I’m a noob, I started 2 months ago with immich and tailscale. Now I have an unraid server, it’s a slippery slope.
The tech-slope is a slippery slide into your wallet 😅
Lol yeh but it’s partially funded by money saved from canceled subscriptions.
That’s what they all say.
