Immich

immich-app/immichReviewed by AI

What it does

Immich is a photo and video library you run yourself instead of leaving everything with a cloud service. You install it on a computer or home server with Docker, open it in a browser, and the phone app uploads new pictures by itself. It groups photos by date and place, recognises faces, searches by what appears in the image, and supports several users, shared albums and raw files. You need Docker and a machine that stays on; the official docs list the hardware requirements.

How easy it is to install

D · terminal, several tools or a specific graphics card · Windows

Windows D
macOS D
Linux D

D on all three: there is no installer or binary in the releases, and the documented way to run it is Docker Compose plus an .env file, which also means keeping a database and a background server running. Linux is the path the project documents best; on Windows and macOS you need Docker Desktop and a machine left switched on.

Coming soon: install in 1 click with the RepoPicks app.

Numbers on GitHub

Stars: 117,828on Oct 31, 2026
Downloads: 6,321,40149,249 this week
Growth: +504stars in 5 days

Stars over time

Facts

Runs on: Linux, macOS, Windows
You need to install: Docker
To build from source: Node.js
Disk space: 100 MB–500 MB · estimate
Accounts or keys: None
Cost: Free · AGPL-3.0 software with no license fee; you pay for the computer or server and the disk space.
License: AGPL-3.0 (Copyleft)
Can replace: Photos, iCloud Photos
Last update: Oct 30, 2026

Risk signals (4)

Attentionyou are responsible for backups
README.md opens with a warning: "Always follow 3-2-1 backup plan for your precious photos and videos!" — the project stores your only copy unless you arrange your own backups.
AI review
Infocopyleft license agpl
LICENSE is the GNU Affero General Public License v3: if you offer a modified version to other people over a network, the license requires you to make your modified source code available to those users.
AI review
Infoinstall script downloads at run time
install.sh creates ./immich-app and then downloads docker-compose.yml and example.env from `https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download` before running `docker compose up`, so what runs depends on the files fetched at that moment.
AI review
Infopre release version published
The newest release is tagged v3.4.0-rc.1 (2026-10-30), a release candidate; the newest stable tag is v3.3.5.
AI review

Evidence is shown in its original language.

What Radar could not check

Whether it installs and runs on your machine with Docker Desktop on Windows or macOS
How much disk space and memory your own library will actually need
Whether face recognition and image search work well on your photos
Whether the phone app's automatic backup catches every new picture