Best Google Photos Alternatives for Backup and Privacy

Ente is the closest private match to Google Photos. Every photo is end-to-end encrypted, so Ente cannot see your library. Face grouping and natural language search still work, because the AI runs on your own device.

The free plan gives you 10 GB forever. Paid plans are $2.49 a month for 50 GB, $4.99 for 200 GB, $9.99 for 1 TB and $19.99 for 2 TB. Yearly billing is also offered. Apps cover Android, iPhone, web, Windows, Mac and Linux, and all of them are open source. You can also self-host the server if you would rather keep the data at home.

Ente's desktop app can import a Google Takeout export directly and match photos with their metadata.

What you lose vs Google Photos: 5 GB less free space, and Google's editing and AI tools.

If you already pay for Amazon Prime, Amazon Photos is the easiest win. Prime members get unlimited full-resolution photo storage plus 5 GB for video. Without Prime you get 5 GB for everything.

The app can search by people, things and places, and it has natural language search. Family Vault lets you share storage with family, and photos show up on Fire TV and Echo Show. Extra storage for video starts at $1.99 a month for 100 GB.

The catch: if you cancel Prime, your storage drops to 5 GB. Photos are not end-to-end encrypted.

What you lose vs Google Photos: video storage, and your library is tied to your Prime membership.

iCloud Photos is already on every iPhone, iPad and Mac. It syncs your full library across devices, and the Photos app groups people and searches by objects and scenes.

The free tier is only 5 GB. iCloud+ costs $0.99 a month for 50 GB, $2.99 for 200 GB, $9.99 for 2 TB, $29.99 for 6 TB and $59.99 for 12 TB. Every paid plan can be shared with up to five family members.

By default, Apple holds the keys to your photos. Turn on Advanced Data Protection and Photos become end-to-end encrypted. There is no Android app, though you can view your library at icloud.com.

What you lose vs Google Photos: a proper Android app, and 10 GB of free space.

OneDrive is a file storage service first, but its phone app has Camera Upload to back up photos and videos automatically. It makes most sense if you already pay for Microsoft 365, since Personal ($99.99 a year) includes 1 TB.

The free plan has 5 GB. Microsoft 365 Basic adds 100 GB for $1.99 a month. Microsoft is rolling out a People view that groups faces in the cloud, but it may not be in your account or region yet. You can turn it off in settings. Files are not end-to-end encrypted.

What you lose vs Google Photos: smart search, memories and a photo-first interface.

Proton Drive comes from the company behind Proton Mail. Everything is end-to-end encrypted, and Proton says it does not use your files to train AI. The Android and iPhone apps back up your camera roll automatically. You get albums, a timeline view, favorites filters and shared albums with passwords and expiry dates.

The free plan has 5 GB. The US App Store lists Drive Plus from $4.99 a month and Proton Unlimited at $14.99 a month. Proton also offers a tool to bring in your Google Photos library and albums.

Proton does not offer face recognition or object search. It presents that as a privacy choice.

What you lose vs Google Photos: face and object search, and most of the free space.

Immich is the self-hosted app that feels most like Google Photos. The Android and iPhone apps back up new photos automatically to your own server. You get a timeline, shared albums, maps, facial recognition and smart search that understands plain descriptions.

It is free and open source under AGPLv3. The Supporter License is a donation and unlocks nothing. The server needs at least 6 GB of RAM and 2 CPU cores and runs with Docker. Immich moves fast, so plan to keep the server and phone apps updated together.

To move from Google, the community tool immich-go can import a Takeout export and keep albums, descriptions and locations from the metadata files. It is not an official Immich project.

What you lose vs Google Photos: zero setup. There is no official hosted version and no end-to-end encryption.

Synology Photos is free software that runs on Synology NAS devices. The phone apps for Android and iPhone back up photos in the background to your NAS. It builds albums automatically using faces, objects and location, and you can make conditional albums based on things like camera model.

There are no subscriptions or ads. The real cost is the NAS and its drives. It also works on Apple TV and Android TV.

What you lose vs Google Photos: off-site backup by default. If the NAS is lost, so are your photos unless you back it up elsewhere.

PhotoPrism is a web app that indexes photos you already store on disk. It leaves your folders exactly as they are. It adds facial recognition, AI labels, a world map and fast search, and works well with RAW files.

The Community Edition is free and open source. Paid Essentials and Plus tiers add extra user roles, 3D and satellite maps and more AI tools. Managed hosting through PikaPods starts at about €6.50 a month.

There is no dedicated backup app. You use the web app as a PWA on your phone, or send photos to the server with a sync app such as PhotoSync or Syncthing.

What you lose vs Google Photos: automatic phone backup out of the box.

Fossify Gallery is not a backup service. It is a clean gallery app for the photos already on your Android phone. It has no ads, no account and no unnecessary permissions, and it does not need the internet.

You still get a photo editor, a recycle bin, EXIF metadata removal, PIN or fingerprint locks and support for RAW, SVG and video files. It is on Google Play, F-Droid and IzzyOnDroid.

Pair it with a backup app from this list, such as Immich or Ente, if you want a private gallery and a separate backup.

What you lose vs Google Photos: backup, sync, face search and anything in the cloud.