Google Photos vs Piwigo

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.

Piwigo is open-source photo management software for organizing and sharing photo and video collections. Albums, sub-albums, tags, metadata, and search help structure a library; roles, groups, and permissions let users publish galleries or restrict access. The software can be extended with plugins, themes, settings, and custom code, and both cloud and self-hosted versions provide API access.

Piwigo Cloud is hosted in France on Piwigo’s own infrastructure; the company says customer data is not transferred to the United States. Android and iOS apps support browsing libraries, editing photo details, and uploading photos and videos. Piwigo describes automatic tag and description generation and OCR text extraction, with its AI hosted on its own infrastructure. Users can export photos, videos, and metadata without charge and switch between Cloud and self-hosted deployments. The self-hosted plan is free. Cloud Pro costs €32 a month, billed annually and excluding VAT, and includes 10GB storage, one administrator, unlimited users, and no contributors. Other listed plans vary in storage, formats, contributors, and support. A Cloud subscription is limited to one Piwigo.