My photo library was a complete disaster. Years of random uploads, screenshots mixed in with actual memories, and folders I couldn’t even remember creating. I had been relying on Google Photos for organization, but I hated being locked into their cloud service. All I wanted was an offline alternative that gave me control over my photos. The problem was that I didn’t know any self-hosted solution that could sort and organize my images the way Google did.

After some searching, I finally stumbled across PhotoPrism, an open-source photo management app. I decided to give it a try, and within minutes of setting it up, it had sorted through my messy photos and organized them in a way that actually made sense.

AI Organization that actually works

An open-source solution that has the features I want

PhotoPrism uses artificial intelligence to do the heavy lifting. It recognizes faces and groups them automatically, so all your photos of family members or friends end up in the same place without any manual sorting. The object detection works well, too. It tags photos based on what’s actually in them. I’ve got photos labeled as “beach,” “sunset,” “dog,” and “food” without adding a single tag myself. It also maps your photos based on location data, letting you explore your library through a map view. The search is fast and intuitive, making it easy to find what you’re looking for instead of scrolling endlessly.

What impressed me the most was how quickly it indexed my entire library. I pointed it to my chaotic photo folder, and within minutes, the AI had already started organizing everything. I watched in real time as it identified faces, detected objects, and sorted photos by date and location. Using PhotoPrism’s AI features was also pretty easy. Having tried other self-hosted solutions before, PhotoPrism stood out as the best. No manual tagging. No reorganizing folders by hand. It just handled it.

PhotoPrism

OS Docker for server; PWA for client

Price model Free to self-host; subscription for cloud storage

Developer PhotoPrism UG

PhotoPrism is a self-hosted, AI-powered photo and video management app that runs on your own server or in the cloud. It enables automatic tagging, face recognition and rich search while preserving your privacy.

Setting up PhotoPrism was easy

It only took a few minutes

Setting it up required a few steps, but Docker made it manageable. First, I created a folder for PhotoPrism. Then I installed Docker Desktop for Windows from the official download site. Once that was installed, I opened the Docker Desktop terminal, changed my directory to the PhotoPrism folder by using:

cd (PHOTOPRISM FOLDER LOCATION)

I then grabbed the PhotoPrism file by running:

curl.exe -o compose.yaml https://dl.photoprism.app/docker/windows/compose.yaml

Next, I opened the compose.yaml file in a text editor and changed a few key settings. I set my admin password and set my PhotoPrism photo folders using Windows paths with forward slashes. Once the config file was ready, I pulled the PhotoPrism container with the command:

docker compose pull

To run the service, I use:

docker compose up -d

I can then access the service by opening my web browser, then pasting this in the URL:

localhost:2342

Within a few minutes, PhotoPrism was running locally on my network. I opened my browser, went to localhost:2342, and logged in. That was it. The setup is genuinely one-time work. After getting Docker Desktop installed and the initial configuration done, everything runs automatically.

I now have a photo management system that’s completely under my control. My photos are mine. My data stays mine. And this is one way I try to take back my privacy from the cloud. Plus, I get a level of organization that’s fully automatic.

A few problems with PhotoPrism

It’s not for everyone

Even though I’m happy to have found a solid alternative, PhotoPrism isn’t perfect. First, it doesn’t have a native app. While the PWA works well on desktop, the experience on mobile is not as polished. A dedicated mobile app designed for smaller screens would make a big difference.

Another issue is that the AI processing requires a fair amount of computing power. This might not be a problem on modern desktops, but for someone like me who likes using old laptops for practical projects, the performance can be slow. The AI will still work; it just takes longer to process everything, depending on how many photos you have in your library. I basically had to host this on my desktop PC.

Lastly, the subject detection isn’t always as accurate as what you’d get from Google Photos. It generally does a good job, but sometimes it labels plants as food or mistakes house items for buildings.

That said, I’m still pretty happy using PhotoPrism. I’m not canceling my Google subscription anytime soon, especially since Google now has an even better offline photos app, but I’m keeping PhotoPrism running for my RAW photos and videos. The PWA works well enough, and the automatic detection and tagging save me hours of manual organization. I’d rather have 80% of my photos sorted automatically than spend time doing everything myself. Overall, PhotoPrism is a great option if you want a truly private, self-hosted photo solution with no subscription required. And did I mention that all your photos stay private and never leave your network?

A private home for the rest of your photos

PhotoPrism gave me a place for the photos I don’t want limited by cloud storage. I still use Google Photos for my recent pictures and quick sharing, but storage runs out fast. So the bulk of my old albums, backups, and personal photos now live in PhotoPrism, stored offline and organized with AI. I get face recognition, object tagging, and a searchable library without giving up privacy. It’s not as polished as Google Photos, but it gives me control and space. If you want to keep your memories without subscriptions or limits, PhotoPrism is a practical and reliable solution.