PhotoStructure vs Stingle Photos

PhotoStructure is a personal digital asset manager for organizing, browsing and sharing photos and videos, with desktop and self-hosted editions. It scans drives, sorts files into a folder structure you choose and watches for new arrivals. Duplicate copies, edits, resized versions and related burst photos can be grouped into a single library entry. Browsing pages surface random samples and provide facets for dates, locations, camera details, folders and people tags. The software supports several hundred photo and video formats and creates web-friendly previews. Tags, captions, corrected dates and locations can be saved in files or XMP sidecars; metadata can also be imported from Apple Photos libraries and read from sidecars or Google Takeout JSON files. Installers are available for Windows, macOS and Linux, while server editions support Docker or Node.js on a home server, NAS or VPS. The maker says the application does not upload photo or video libraries, though optional error reports may include system information, paths, logs and error details. Lite is free; Plus is $5 a month and includes a 15-day trial.

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.