HomeGallery vs Immich
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted photo management options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Immich
High-performance self-hosted photo and video backup
| Feature | HomeGallery | Immich |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | ≈5-minute setup |
| Health score | 72 · Good | 100 · Excellent |
| Category | Photo Management | Photo Management |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 2,048 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,185 | ★ 114,920 |
| First released | 2020 | 2022 |
| Replaces | Google Photos | Google Photos, iCloud Photos |
What are HomeGallery and Immich?
HomeGallery
HomeGallery is a self-hosted web gallery that indexes photos and videos and offers fast browsing, similarity search, and face detection. It builds an offline-capable database from your existing media folders.
- Similarity search
- Face detection
- Video support
- Offline-capable database
Immich
Immich is a high-performance, self-hosted photo and video backup solution with mobile apps, AI search, and face recognition. It targets users wanting a private Google Photos alternative. It is deployed via Docker Compose.
- Automatic phone backup
- AI-powered search and face recognition
- Timeline and album views
- Multi-user with sharing
HomeGallery vs Immich: key differences
HomeGallery is written in JavaScript, while Immich is built with TypeScript. Licensing differs — MIT for HomeGallery versus AGPL-3.0 for Immich. HomeGallery is the lighter option, starting around 1,024 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for Immich. HomeGallery is the more established project (first released 2020), while Immich arrived in 2022. Immich has the considerably larger community, at 114,920 GitHub stars versus 1,185.
Why pick each one
Choose HomeGallery if…
- Fast browsing
- Reads existing folders
Watch out for
- Indexing can be slow
- No upload from app
Choose Immich if…
- Excellent mobile apps
- Fast and feature-rich
- Very active development
Watch out for
- Resource intensive
- Breaking changes still occur
Frequently asked questions
Is HomeGallery or Immich better?
Neither is universally better. Immich has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are HomeGallery and Immich free and open-source?
Yes. HomeGallery is licensed under MIT and Immich under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run HomeGallery and Immich with Docker?
HomeGallery: yes. Immich: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, HomeGallery or Immich?
HomeGallery has the smaller minimum footprint at 1,024 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for Immich. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.