We all have photos and videos taking up space on our hard drives and cloud-based storage. While many people use the cloud storage available to them, often Apple’s iCloud or Google Photos by default, they might not think about the negatives of giving their photos and videos to giant corporations. If you would rather not do so, read on to learn about the advantages of taking an alternative path with Immich.
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5 Multi-platform support
Access your photos from all device types
Although Immich is self-hosted, you can download apps on major platforms like iOS and Android to keep control of your photo management. Since it’s open-source, Immich is available to be used on pretty much any platform and system type you use, namely Windows, Mac, and Linux.
You’re not limited by Apple connectivity nor Google connectivity. You can access your Immich-hosted photos from anywhere.
4 Personal privacy
Keep your images for your eyes only
How many people read the terms and conditions of the cloud-based storage they sign up for? I might be generalizing, but I imagine the answer is probably almost nobody. It can be easy to sign away our privacy in the modern day. It’s hard to even think about the worst things that could happen to our family photos and videos — hacking, scamming, deep fakes, or worse.
Self-hosting via Immich means you’re entirely in control of your privacy. No one has access to the photos and videos you upload to your Immich server.
Privacy is increasingly something people don’t often worry about, but in the modern day, we need to be more vigilant than ever before about our privacy. Using Immich gives you back control of your own photos and videos.
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3 Photo and video management and storage
Not photo exclusive
Immich is perfect for storing all your photos and images, as well as video files. As a self-hosted platform, you’re entirely in control of the storage space allowances, so if you need more storage, you can create more through your hosting platform.
Videos are typically large files, and due to that, they often end up being deleted because they can’t fit within standard iCloud or Google Photos storage restraints. No longer do you have to sacrifice your video management for more storage space. With a local option, you can store and manage both types easily.
2 Self-hosted
You’re in control
You don’t need to rely on your photos and videos being stored on someone else’s hosting server. Immich is entirely self-hosted, meaning you’re totally in control of your file management.
The self-hosted nature does come at the price of learning how to self-host, so Immich isn’t for everyone. But with enough knowledge and research into open-source software, hosting, and less reliance on big name companies looking after your files, anyone is able to utilize what Immich has to offer.
Not only will you be able to store your own files with your privacy in mind, but you’ll likely learn a lot about development, coding, and hosting in doing so. Immich has a learning curve in more than one way. Though if you’ve ever hosted your own website, for example, that is a similar process to hosting your Immich file management.
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1 Lifetime license available for support
Be a personal part of Immich support
Although Immich is open-source and free, like most open-source projects, it did introduce a paid license for extra support in July 2024. For $100 you’ll get a lifetime server license, and there’s also an individual hosting license which is $25. While paid features are sometimes looked down upon by the open-source developer community, it can be a positive for its users.
The free version of Immich is labeled as a lifetime trial — it will always be free, as it has been in the past.
But now, Immich supporters can pay for a further license which offers some better features. While all open-source projects have a donate option to support the cause, there aren’t many which have a separate tier of use for paid users.
Although this means that Immich receives better funding support, resulting in a better software, some of the open-source community see this as the beginning of a downfall, fearing that Immich may eventually move away from the open-source model and become a paid-platform. While there’s no way to tell right now if that’s the case, it’s something to keep in mind if you wish to use Immich for cost-savings when hosting your images.
Immich offers personalized privacy for your photos and videos
Google Photos and Apple’s iCloud are both big names in the photo and video storage world. Most regular people use one or both of these systems. In a world where we must subscribe to save our own files, it seems silly to put our privacy and intimate captured moments in the hands of giant corporations. Immich paves the difference between storage and sacrificing privacy, but it does come at the cost of a high barrier of entry for anyone not familiar with coding, development, and using GitHub for hosted projects.
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