Cluster vs Stingle Photos

Cluster provides private group sharing for friends and family outside social media. Members create groups for photos, videos, comments, and chat, with album access limited to invited users. Owners can share a private invitation link, and recipients can request to join. Notifications show when something new is added, while members can see who viewed or liked posts. Group photos can be turned into printed photo books. Cluster runs on Android, iOS, and the web, with no desktop app listed. Its free plan allows up to 10 groups, 1,000 photos per group, and 50 members per group; free video uploads are limited to one minute and SD quality. Cluster says photos are stored in redundant cloud locations and accessed over encrypted connections. Its policy describes SSL communications, does not guarantee complete security, and allows data downloads and deletion requests. Cluster is maintained by Fotoloce.

Stingle Photos is a gallery and camera app for backing up and syncing photos and videos across devices using the same account. It backs up files in the background and supports video recording and playback. Files are encrypted locally before they are sent to cloud storage. Stingle names XChaCha20 with Poly1305 for file data, X25519 for public-key cryptography and Argon2 for key derivation; it says sensitive photo and video metadata is encrypted in the file header. Albums can be shared with other Stingle users using encrypted album keys. The product is open source under GPLv3, and listed platforms include Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows, API access and self-hosting. The free plan includes 1 GB. Paid storage starts at $2.99 a month for 100 GB; other listed plans include monthly and yearly capacities up to multiple terabytes. Users can host their own API server, with Linux, S3-compatible storage, a domain name and Git among the prerequisites. The hosted service uses DigitalOcean and Wasabi hot cloud storage. The provider cannot recover or change a forgotten password, so users should save the recovery phrase. The maker’s August 2026 post says the iOS app is available on the App Store and includes a built-in camera; a web version is planned.