I used Immich for years, but this self-hosted Google Photos alternative is even better

I’ve had Immich running on my home server for the past three years. It’s a self-hosting essential for me as I try to offload as much of my backups and services from the cloud as possible. It’s where I keep the photos from my SLR, where my phone backs up photos automatically, and where I can search through years of images without handing everything over to Google. For a self-hosted alternative to Google Photos, there’s little doubt that Immich is the go-to for most.

But as good as Immich is, as an enthusiast, I was bound to run into limitations. Immich is great at managing individual photo libraries, but it isn’t always great at managing a family’s photo library. If you’re trying to share a portion of your library, Immich makes it extremely hard. And you can absolutely forget about sharing certain aspects of the library, like metadata.