Google Photos vs Noodle Gallery
Google Photos
google.com
Noodle Gallery
opennoodle.deSide by side
| Figure | Google Photos | Noodle Gallery |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 10 | 1 |
| Spec score · Photo Storage Services | 9.3 (#4) | 7.8 (#50) |
| Privacy | Google says Photos does not sell users’ photos, videos, or personal information and does not use their photos and videos for advertising. | Photos, videos, metadata, face-recognition data, and user accounts are stored on the user's server, which the developers say they cannot access. |
| Product | Google Photos provides tools to edit, organize, search, back up, and share photos and videos. | Noodle Gallery is a self-hosted photo and video app with smart search, face recognition, Shared Spaces, and S3 storage. |
Plans
Google Photos
- FreeFree
- Basic$1.99 a month
- Google AI Plus$9.99 a month
- Google AI Pro$19.99 a month
- FreeFree
- Basic$1.99 a month
- Google AI Plus$9.99 a month
- Google One Basic (100 GB)¥290 a month
- Google AI Plus (2 TB)¥1,450 a month
- Google AI Pro (5 TB)¥2,900 a month
In their own words
Google Photos
Google Photos is a service for editing, organizing, searching, backing up, and sharing photos and videos. It runs on Android, iOS, and the web. A Google Account includes 15 GB shared among Photos, Gmail, and Drive at no cost; Original quality backups use that storage. Users can back up media automatically or manually, and share photos, videos, and albums with people who do not use Google Photos. The app lists AI editing tools including Magic Eraser and Photo Unblur. It supports full-resolution RAW image backup and cloud storage for 4K video. Google lists paid monthly plans including Basic at $1.99 a month for 100 GB, Google AI Plus at $9.99 a month for 2 TB, and Google AI Pro at $19.99 a month for 5 TB; each allows up to five additional people. The natural-language search example is limited to eligible US users aged 18 or older who meet specified language and settings requirements. Google says data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and users can delete or export their content.
Noodle Gallery
Noodle Gallery is a self-hosted photo and video app for storing and organizing media on a server you provide. Its Shared Spaces let several people contribute to one chronological timeline while keeping their personal libraries separate. A Cmd/Ctrl+K palette searches photos, people, places, tags, albums, Spaces, commands, and settings. The server supports S3-compatible storage, including AWS S3, MinIO, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, and Wasabi. A browser import wizard reads Google Takeout archives while retaining dates, GPS coordinates, descriptions, favorites, and album structure. Native iOS and Android apps include background camera backup, CLIP search, a map, and Shared Spaces. The developers say media, metadata, face-recognition data, and accounts stay on the user’s server, which they cannot access. Noodle Gallery is open source under AGPL-3.0, and each instance provides REST API documentation and Swagger UI at /doc. The free self-hosted plan has no subscription or storage cap, but runs on user-provided hardware.