Hi all,
So recently my immediate family had expressed interest in getting some kind of photo share platform for us to share vacation photos more easily. We’ve done a Dropbox with extended family years ago, but that sucked to hard that it even managed to put my non-techy family off of doing that again.
So what are some ideas you all can think of? I’ve seen Immich mentioned around here before, but I’ve honestly never set up even a real homelab or sever before, so that’s a bit daunting. Their google photos-esque UI is a bit plus as everyone but me uses that.
It wouldn’t need to be open to the internet, local WiFi would work as well really just need to be able to share photos between our phones more easily once we get back from a trip. I’ve got an older laptop with like 8GB RAM that I could run the server off of.
Sorry if this is really vague. I’ve just been given instructions to “find out what’s out there” by my non-techy family and I figured you all here would have a better idea of my options. Thanks!
You must log in or # to comment.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters LVM (Linux) Logical Volume Manager for filesystem mapping NAS Network-Attached Storage PCIe Peripheral Component Interconnect Express RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage SSD Solid State Drive mass storage VPN Virtual Private Network ZFS Solaris/Linux filesystem focusing on data integrity
[Thread #59 for this comm, first seen 22nd Jul 2026, 06:10] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
If you’re looking to learn how to set up a server and start selfhosting, Immich is great. You can get a docker image that includes the postgres database and everything, and it’s not hard to pair it with a reverse proxy or tailscale/VPN if you want to expose it to the web. You also don’t have to do that, just open the local port and use it on home WiFi.
HOWEVER, if you’re daunted by self-hosting and just want a simple, secure experience, Ente is the way to go, IMHO. It’s end-to-end encrypted so your photos are private, and the server is maintained and managed by people who know what they’re doing. Headache-free for you. The cost is a bit more than Google Photos, so it’s competitively priced but you’re paying only with cash instead of personal data.
Immich squad. I dont want to scare you off but the right way is to combine it with tailscale and immich public proxy. That way hackers cant easily access all ur fotos but you can still share em
Are you optimizing for a polished experience or for simplicity?
If for something polished that works very well, you’ve probably already found the best solution - immich. There’s also Piwigo, Photoprism etc.
If you’re looking for something simpler, can I suggest using syncthing (think: like a local version of Dropbox, sorta), with PiGallery2?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncthing
https://github.com/bpatrik/pigallery2
The idea here is that it creates a website that you can access on your Wi-Fi that is populated by the files that you push into the folder using your sync thing.
That’s not as elegant as immich, but it’s another option if you’re looking for low-end hardware.
As many have suggested immich is the answer I have tried a few others but immich is the answers.
I’ve seen Immich mentioned around here before, but I’ve honestly never set up even a real homelab or sever before, so that’s a bit daunting.
I haven’t been in this space for too long either, but immich is what brought me here. I tried it out locally - no deecated server, just spun up immich on my desktop machine to try it out. And it was just so good it made me want to have a server and learn the ropes.
I’d recommend you try it out this way too. We’ll see each other on the other side of that rabbit hole. ;)
Immich
I got 5 users, over 1TB photos and videos, continuous syncing from Android, AI search, OCR search, you name it, all works great. The only thing at that size is that it needs SSD storage or SSD caching. I got ZFS pool with SSD cache and it’s blazing fast. On disks alone, things are a bit more difficult.
Just use Immich. It’s easy and apes Google Photos.
Ente is the other main option, but I never evaluated it because Immich worked so well.
Immich is the easiest self-hosted thing I’ve set up. It also might’ve been the first.
I have to warn you about Immich on one item: large file upload. Immich does not have chunk uploading, so if you are backing up a large video and you lose internet, the upload has to start all over. I found this out when my phone was trying to upload a 4k video that was about 10GB.
I eventually set syncthing to do phone image and video backups. That kinda solved this issue.
Can you upload by any other means, or does it always require it’s own upload mechanism?
Just recently migrated from Ente to Immich. Immich is much nicer, more consistent, friendlier to self host, and less buggy in my experience so far.
Immich doesn’t have shared album option does it ?
It does. My Immich installation is behind a reverse proxy, and I simply share the link to the albums with friends and family.
Can they upload photos onto your server too?
You can share albums with other users, or even with a public link.
Yes but can someone else upload photos into your albums?
It does, and they work well.
Ente
Immich is the correct choice
I do this with my family using Immich. Everyone has their own private library but we also have shared albums for vacations and such.
There’s Nexcloud and the “Memories” plugin. It’s not as good as Immich though, especially if you don’t need the rest of NextCloud.
if you buy a nas and some hardrives, the nas os usually has an app repository, so you fibd immich and click install. that will be the easy , non-technical way to do it
I use ente.io, afaik you can selfhost it but I’m sticking with their subscription since I don’t trust myself with my backup strategy ^^"
It also has an “event”-feature where you can share an album-link and people without an account/the app can upload images to the album
Photoprism is what I use.
If you install proxmox on the laptop there is a community script to install and setup photoprism. Lots of other neat services you could run too. Relatively beginner friendly.
There are android and ios apps for photoprism that will auto upload new images from your phone to the photoprism server.
