Ente Photos vs Immich

Ente Photos is an end-to-end encrypted photo service for backing up and accessing images across devices. Its apps encrypt photos and metadata on the device before upload, and can back up new photos in the background. On-device AI recognizes faces and photo elements to support natural-language search. Users can revisit curated memories and share encrypted albums or browser links, with password and expiry options for links. Album owners can allow others to contribute photos, including people without an Ente account. Ente documents imports from Google Photos, Apple Photos, Amazon Photos, and local storage; its desktop app supports incremental export. The Free plan includes 10 GB and one replica. Paid plans start with Starter at $2.49 a month, which includes 50 GB. Paid subscribers can share storage with up to five family members, each with a private space. Ente says it stores three encrypted copies across providers and EU locations. It also says it cannot recover an account or data if a user loses both the password and recovery key while logged out of all devices.

Immich is a free, open-source app for backing up photos and videos from Android and iOS devices to a server users manage themselves. Uploads can come through the mobile app, browser, or command-line interface; external libraries can be added as read-only folders. The web app opens in a browser at the server address on port 2283. Albums, hierarchical tags, maps, memories, favorites, and a folder view help organize media. Smart Search accepts natural-language phrases, and facial recognition detects and groups faces. Users can share libraries with friends and family, create public links for collections, or share with partners. Immich supports OAuth identity providers, API keys, and Prometheus monitoring. Deployment documentation covers Docker Compose and Kubernetes, with community NAS guides also available. The documentation recommends a 64-bit Linux or Unix-like system, requires Docker Compose, and gives minimum server resources of 6 GB RAM and 2 CPU cores. Automatic database backups contain metadata only, so uploaded photos and videos need separate backups. The listed plan is free, with a self-hosted server required.