Why Self-Host Your Photos?
Google Photos and iCloud are convenient, but your photos live on someone else's servers. Storage costs keep rising, and you have no control over how your data is used. Immich is an open-source, self-hosted alternative that gives you the same experience on hardware you control.
What Immich Offers
- Automatic mobile backup — iOS and Android apps with background upload
- Facial recognition — ML-powered face detection and grouping
- Timeline view — Browse by date, location, or album
- Shared albums — Share photos with family without third-party accounts
- RAW support — Photographers can store and preview RAW files
- Video playback — Stream your videos directly from the web interface
Architecture
Immich runs as a multi-container application:
| Container | Purpose |
|---|---|
| immich-server | Main API and web interface |
| immich-machine-learning | Face detection, object recognition, CLIP search |
| PostgreSQL + pgvecto.rs | Metadata storage and vector search |
| Redis | Job queue and caching |
Deploying on Panelica
Navigate to Docker → App Templates and select Immich. Panelica handles the multi-container orchestration, volume mappings, and networking automatically.
Resource Recommendations
| Photo Library Size | RAM | Storage |
|---|---|---|
| Under 10,000 photos | 4 GB | 50 GB |
| 10,000 – 50,000 photos | 8 GB | 200 GB |
| Over 50,000 photos | 16 GB+ | 500 GB+ |
Note: The machine learning container will use significant CPU during initial face detection and object tagging. This is normal and will settle down after processing your existing library.
Setting Up Mobile Backup
- Install the Immich app from the App Store or Google Play
- Enter your server URL (e.g.,
https://photos.yourdomain.com) - Create an account or log in
- Enable Background Backup in app settings
- Select which albums to back up
The app will automatically upload new photos and videos whenever your device is connected to Wi-Fi (configurable).
Using a Custom Domain
For the best experience, point a subdomain to your Immich instance. In Panelica:
- Create a subdomain (e.g.,
photos.yourdomain.com) - Link it to the Immich Docker container via Docker → Domain Mapping
- Panelica will automatically provision an SSL certificate
Summary
Immich is the most complete self-hosted Google Photos alternative available. Combined with Panelica's Docker management, you get enterprise-grade photo backup running on your own infrastructure with zero recurring cloud storage fees.