Open-source alternative
Replace Google Photos with Immich
The best open-source alternative to Google Photos is Immich, self-hosted on Railway. Photos you host. Immich is AGPL-3.0 — Google Photos without the library in someone else's building.
Estimated save $1,200 a year.
Open the stackStart on Railway
How Google Photos compares
| Google Photos | Immich | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Hosted subscription | Open-source or fair-code license; you pay the host |
| Hosting | Vendor cloud | Self-hosted on Railway or any VPS |
| Rough monthly cost | Public list price not verified this run | Hosting only — no SaaS seat meter in this repo |
- Immich
AGPL-3.0 self-hosted photo and video backup
FAQ
- Is it free?
- The Immich licenses are open source or fair-code. You still pay hosting (Railway or any VPS) and any APIs the stack calls. There is no Google Photos seat or task bill on this path.
- Can I migrate from Google Photos?
- Yes. Start with the workflows or data you actually use, then cut over. The Immich stack page has the agent prompt and the cost table; most teams rebuild the slice that matters and leave old Google Photos links until they expire.
- How do I deploy it?
- Open the Immich stack, copy the agent prompt, and deploy on Railway (one service, PORT, and a volume when the app needs disk). Placeholder: Immich (server + ML + Redis + Postgres) plus a large volume for originals. Machine-learning jobs want RAM; GPU is optional. No one-click template in this repo yet — Start on Railway. File suites stay on /stacks/nextcloud-files.
- What does this replace?
- Google Photos. The published small-team estimate on this stack is $1,200 a year.
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