Immich is a self-hosted photo library that stores and organises your entire photo collection on a NAS or home server, with no monthly fees, no third-party access to your images, and no storage caps. Google Photos is a cloud service that does the same job with better AI search and zero hardware required, but charges for storage beyond 15 GB and holds all of your family's photos on Google's servers. The right choice depends on how much you value privacy, what you're willing to spend on hardware, and whether your NBN connection can handle the upload load.
In short: Choose Google Photos if you want a polished, zero-effort experience and are comfortable paying $3.49-$34.99/month (AUD) for storage. Choose Immich on a NAS if you want full control, no recurring fees, and can invest $500-$1,000 upfront in hardware. Most Australian families on NBN with 20-50 Mbps upload will find Immich's sync speeds workable for ongoing backups once the initial library is indexed locally.
Google Photos
Google Photos is the default photo management choice for Android users and widely used on iPhone. Every Google account includes 15 GB free, shared across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. When that fills, you move to Google One at $3.49/month for 100 GB or $34.99/month for 2 TB (prices as of early 2026 in AUD).
The standout feature is search. Google Photos can find photos by subject, location, face, or natural-language query with accuracy that no self-hosted alternative currently matches at the same level of ease. The mobile app backs up photos automatically in the background. Sharing albums with family is frictionless. Video processing and motion photos work well. For most households, it simply works without any configuration.
The privacy trade-off is direct: Google scans your photos to build its AI model, deliver personalised results, and theoretically inform advertising. Photos of your children, your home, your daily movements, and your family's milestones sit on Google's servers under Google's terms of service. This is fine for most people and a dealbreaker for others.
Australian-specific consideration: Google Photos upload speed is constrained by your NBN upload. On a standard NBN 50 plan with 20 Mbps upload, backing up a library of 50,000 photos (roughly 200 GB) takes around 22 hours of continuous upload. Once the initial sync is done, ongoing backup is fast because only new photos are uploaded.
| Storage (free) | 15 GB (shared with Gmail and Drive) |
|---|---|
| Storage pricing (AUD) | $3.49/month for 100 GB, $10.49/month for 200 GB, $34.99/month for 2 TB |
| Platform | Cloud (Google servers) |
| AI search | Excellent: face, subject, location, natural language |
| Mobile backup | Automatic (Android and iOS) |
| Family sharing | Google One family plans up to 6 members |
| Video quality | Original quality stored (within plan limits) |
| Offline access | Limited. Requires download or cached copies. |
| Privacy | Google holds and processes all photos |
| Hardware required | None |
| Setup effort | Minimal: install app, sign in |
Pros
- No hardware required, works immediately
- Best-in-class AI search and face recognition
- Seamless mobile backup on Android and iOS
- Easy family sharing and collaborative albums
- Access from any device, anywhere
- Automatic duplicate detection and memory highlights
Cons
- Recurring cost: $3.49-$34.99/month once you exceed 15 GB free
- All photos stored on Google servers, no privacy guarantee
- Subject to Google's terms of service, which can change
- Upload speed capped by NBN upload (20-50 Mbps typical)
- Photos held hostage if account is suspended or payment lapses
- No option to self-host or migrate easily to another service
Immich
Immich is an open-source, self-hosted photo and video backup application that runs on a NAS or home server. It is designed to look and feel like Google Photos: automatic backup from your phone, face recognition, subject search, albums, and a map view of where photos were taken. Everything runs on your own hardware. No subscription. No third-party access to your photos.
The project has matured rapidly since 2022. As of early 2026, Immich supports mobile backup on iOS and Android, face clustering, machine learning-based search, shared libraries between family members, and external library integration. It is a serious alternative to Google Photos for technically-capable households, not a rough proof-of-concept.
The setup requirement is real. Immich runs as a Docker container stack. On Synology, you install it through Container Manager. On QNAP, through Container Station. The installation process takes 30-60 minutes the first time and requires comfort with Docker configuration, port mapping, and reverse proxy or Tailscale for remote access. Once running, day-to-day use is straightforward.
The hardware requirement is the key decision point. You need a NAS or home server with enough CPU and RAM to run Docker containers and handle AI indexing. The minimum practical spec is a NAS with 4 GB RAM and an Intel or AMD x86 CPU. ARM-based NAS units (common in the entry-level Synology and QNAP range) can run Immich but AI indexing will be significantly slower. A Synology DS425+ ($785 from Mwave or Scorptec) with 4-8 TB of NAS drives is a solid starting point for a family photo server.
Remote access is where the NBN CGNAT issue matters. Many Australian ISPs place residential NBN connections behind Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT), which means you cannot simply open a port on your router to reach Immich from outside your home. The practical solution most NTKIT readers use is Tailscale: a free, peer-to-peer VPN that creates a private network between your devices and your NAS without needing a public IP or open ports. Check your ISP before assuming direct remote access is possible.
CGNAT and remote access: Most Australian residential NBN plans are behind Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT). This means you cannot port-forward to reach Immich from outside your home network. Solutions: use Tailscale (free, works behind CGNAT), set up a Cloudflare Tunnel, or check whether your ISP offers a static IP add-on. Telstra, Optus, and most NBN resellers all use CGNAT on standard residential plans. This is not a problem unique to Immich, but it affects any self-hosted service.
| Storage cost | No subscription: you pay for hardware and drives only |
|---|---|
| Platform | Self-hosted (NAS or home server via Docker) |
| AI search | Good and improving: face clustering, CLIP-based semantic search |
| Mobile backup | Automatic (iOS and Android apps) |
| Family sharing | Shared libraries between accounts on the same server |
| Video quality | Original quality always, no compression |
| Offline access | Full access on home network; remote access via Tailscale or tunnel |
| Privacy | Complete: photos never leave your hardware |
| Hardware required | NAS or server with Docker support, 4+ GB RAM, x86 CPU recommended |
| Setup effort | Moderate: Docker setup, 30-60 min initial configuration |
| Minimum practical NAS (AU) | Synology DS425+ from $785 (Mwave, Scorptec) |
Pros
- No subscription fees: hardware and drives are a one-time cost
- Complete privacy: photos never leave your home network
- No storage caps: add drives as your library grows
- Original quality video and photos always preserved
- Runs on existing NAS hardware you may already own
- Active open-source development, improving rapidly
Cons
- Requires NAS hardware: $500-$1,500+ upfront depending on model and drives
- Setup requires Docker knowledge, not for non-technical users
- AI search quality lags behind Google Photos, especially for natural language
- Remote access requires Tailscale or tunnelling due to NBN CGNAT
- Backups rely on your NAS being online and drives being healthy
- No equivalent to Google's automatic "Memories" and highlight reels (yet)
Side-by-Side Comparison
Immich vs Google Photos: Feature Comparison
| Google Photos | Immich on NAS | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | $3.49-$34.99/month (after 15 GB free) | $0: hardware is a one-time cost |
| 5-year total cost (family, 200 GB) | ~$630 AUD ($10.49/month x 60) | ~$800-$1,200 upfront (NAS + drives), then $0 |
| Privacy | Google holds and processes your photos | Completely private: stays on your hardware |
| AI search quality | Excellent, best available | Good, CLIP semantic search, improving rapidly |
| Face recognition | Excellent, high accuracy | Good: clusters faces, improving accuracy |
| Mobile backup | Automatic, background, iOS and Android | Automatic via Immich app, iOS and Android |
| Remote access | Always-on, from any device | Requires Tailscale or tunnel (CGNAT issue on AU NBN) |
| Storage limit | Plan-dependent, up to 30 TB via Google One | Unlimited: limited only by your drives |
| Video quality | Original quality stored (within plan) | Always original quality, no compression |
| Family sharing | Google One family plan (up to 6) | Shared libraries between accounts on same server |
| Setup effort | None: install app, sign in | 30-60 min Docker setup, CGNAT workaround needed |
| Hardware required | None | NAS with 4+ GB RAM, x86 CPU recommended, HDD/SSD storage |
| Data portability | Google Takeout export (manual) | Direct access to files, full portability always |
| Offline access | Limited: needs download or cache | Full access on home network at all times |
Cost Comparison Over Time
The cost comparison shifts depending on your family's total library size and how long you plan to run either solution. Google Photos charges by storage consumed. Immich has a fixed hardware cost up front and then runs on electricity.
A typical Australian family generating 3-5 GB of new photos and video per month will fill the 15 GB Google free tier within a year or two. Moving to the 100 GB plan at $3.49/month costs $41.88/year. A family with an existing 200 GB library needs the 200 GB plan at $10.49/month, which is $125.88/year. A family shooting 4K video or with a large legacy library may hit the 2 TB tier at $34.99/month, which is $419.88/year.
For Immich, a practical entry point for a family photo server is a Synology DS425+ (from $785 at Mwave or Scorptec) plus two 4 TB Seagate IronWolf drives (approximately $180 each from Scorptec or Mwave). Total upfront: around $1,150 for 4 TB usable in a mirrored RAID 1 configuration. Electricity costs roughly $25-40/year for a NAS running 24/7 at typical AU power rates. No subscription cost after that, ever.
On the 200 GB Google One plan, a family recovers the Immich hardware cost in roughly 9 years. On the 2 TB plan at $34.99/month, the hardware pays back in under 3 years. The economics clearly favour Immich for large families with big libraries and a long time horizon. For a family spending $3.49/month, the payback period stretches to 20+ years, at which point Google Photos is the simpler financial choice.
NBN Upload Speed Reality
Both services are constrained by your NBN upload speed, but in opposite ways. Google Photos requires uploading your entire library to Google's servers. Immich stores photos locally and only requires upload when you access your NAS remotely.
On a standard NBN 50 plan with a 20 Mbps upload, the initial Google Photos sync of a 100 GB library takes around 11 hours of continuous upload. For a 500 GB library, that stretches to 55 hours, spread across several days of background sync. Once synced, ongoing daily uploads are small.
For Immich, photos taken on your phone sync to your home NAS when you're on your home Wi-Fi, which is fast. Remote access via Tailscale uses NBN upload only for the data you're actively viewing, not for initial library sync. This is a real advantage for households with large video libraries: a 4K family video never needs to be uploaded to a cloud service. It sits on your NAS and you access it locally or via a direct Tailscale connection.
NBN upload variability is a practical consideration for Google Photos users. NBN upload speeds vary significantly by connection type and evening congestion. An NBN 250/25 plan offers 25 Mbps upload, while an NBN 1000/50 plan offers 50 Mbps. On a base NBN 12/1 connection, Google Photos backup of any meaningful library size becomes impractical. Immich is largely immune to this constraint for the initial library setup because everything lives on local storage.
Which NAS Hardware Works for Immich in Australia
Immich runs as a Docker container stack. The hardware requirements are more demanding than basic NAS file storage: you need enough CPU and RAM to run the machine learning models that power face recognition and semantic search. ARM-based processors, common in budget NAS units, can run Immich but AI indexing of large libraries will be slow, sometimes taking days for libraries of 50,000+ photos.
The recommended minimum for a family running Immich with AI features enabled is a NAS with an Intel or AMD x86 processor and at least 4 GB of RAM. Models worth considering from Australian retailers as of early 2026:
- Synology DS425+, 4-bay, Intel Celeron J4125, 2 GB RAM expandable to 6 GB, from $785 at Mwave and Scorptec. The most popular choice for Immich in the Synology ecosystem. The DS225+ (2-bay from $538) is viable for smaller libraries.
- Synology DS925+, 4-bay, AMD Ryzen R1600, 4 GB RAM expandable to 32 GB, from $980 at Mwave and Scorptec. More headroom for large libraries and concurrent family access.
- QNAP TS-464, 4-bay, Intel Celeron N5105, 8 GB RAM, from $989 at Scorptec and PLE Computers. Good balance of price and performance for Immich. QNAP's Container Station makes Docker management straightforward.
- QNAP TS-264, 2-bay, Intel Celeron N5105, 8 GB RAM, from $759 at Scorptec. Solid 2-bay option for families with smaller libraries.
For drives, a mirrored RAID 1 configuration with two NAS-class drives is the minimum for a family photo server. Seagate IronWolf 4 TB drives are available from Mwave and Scorptec. Factor the drive cost into your hardware budget alongside the NAS enclosure.
Already have a NAS? If you have a Synology or QNAP NAS with Container Manager or Container Station installed and at least 4 GB RAM, you can run Immich on your existing hardware. The Immich project provides step-by-step Docker Compose instructions. You don't need to buy new hardware to try it.
Privacy and Data Ownership
The privacy difference between Immich and Google Photos is absolute. With Immich, photos never leave your home network unless you explicitly set up remote access. With Google Photos, all photos are uploaded to and stored on Google's servers, processed by Google's AI systems, and subject to Google's terms of service and privacy policy.
For most families this is an acceptable trade-off. Google's terms are standard for a large cloud provider and the service is genuinely useful. The risk that concerns privacy-conscious users is not Google selling your individual photos but the broader implications: your family's location history, daily routines, children's faces, and personal moments are all part of Google's data estate. You are dependent on Google not changing its terms, not being breached, and not discontinuing the service.
Google has a mixed track record on service continuity. Google Reader, Google+, Inbox by Gmail, and dozens of other products have been discontinued. Google Photos is a core product with hundreds of millions of users, so discontinuation is unlikely. But the precedent exists.
With Immich, you own the data outright. If you stop maintaining the server, you still have all your photos on the drives. If the project is abandoned (open-source risk), you still have your files. The trade-off is that you are now responsible for backups: if your NAS drives fail without a backup, photos are gone. The 3-2-1 backup rule applies: three copies, two different media types, one offsite. A NAS running Immich is one copy, not three.
Which Option Suits Each Family
There is no single right answer. The right choice depends on your family's priorities, technical comfort level, and budget profile.
Google Photos suits families who:
- Want a polished, zero-effort experience that just works on everyone's phone
- Spend less than $10-12/month on storage (the payback period for Immich hardware extends beyond 8-10 years at this cost level)
- Have limited NBN upload but are comfortable with background sync over multiple days
- Are not concerned about Google processing their photos
- Don't want to manage hardware, software updates, or Docker configuration
Immich on NAS suits families who:
- Value privacy and want complete control over where family photos are stored
- Have a large library that would cost $15-35/month on Google One
- Already own a compatible NAS or are planning to buy one for other purposes (file sharing, Plex, backups)
- Have a technically-capable family member willing to handle the initial Docker setup and ongoing maintenance
- Want original-quality video storage without compression or upload constraints
- Understand the responsibility of self-hosting: they need to manage drive health and offsite backups themselves
The hybrid approach: A meaningful number of Australian families run both. Immich as the primary high-resolution archive on a NAS, with Google Photos running in compressed mode on phones as a fast, searchable, always-available mobile copy. This gives the best of both worlds for families who can absorb the complexity: full-resolution, private archival storage at home plus the convenience of Google's AI search in your pocket. The compressed copies on Google Photos stay within the 15 GB free tier for many families when original-quality upload is disabled.
Australian Families: What You Need to Know
Australian families considering Immich should factor in a few local realities that generic guides tend to miss.
CGNAT is the biggest surprise. Most Australian residential NBN connections are behind Carrier-Grade NAT, which means you cannot simply open a port on your router and access Immich from your phone while away from home. The standard workaround is Tailscale, a free peer-to-peer VPN that works behind CGNAT without requiring a static IP. Telstra, Optus, TPG, Aussie Broadband, and most other NBN providers use CGNAT on standard residential plans. Check before you plan your remote access setup.
NBN upload speeds vary significantly. Standard NBN 50 plans offer 20 Mbps upload. NBN 100 plans offer 20 Mbps upload on most providers (the speed tier name refers to download). NBN 250 and above plans begin to offer 25-100 Mbps upload. If you plan to run Immich as your only copy and rely on Tailscale remote access, this matters less than if you're also syncing to Google Photos or a cloud backup service.
NAS hardware is available through specialist AU retailers. Synology, QNAP, and Asustor NAS units are all readily available through Scorptec, PLE Computers, Mwave, and Umart. Pricing is consistent across the major retailers with modest variation. If you're buying a NAS specifically for Immich, buy from a specialist like Scorptec or PLE where pre-sales staff can advise on compatibility, rather than Amazon AU where you'll get lower pre-sales support if questions arise.
Australian Consumer Law applies to all NAS hardware purchased from Australian retailers. Consumer NAS units carry a 3-year warranty. Your warranty claim goes to the retailer, not the manufacturer. If a NAS fails, the retailer must offer repair, replacement, or refund. Plan for a 2-3 week resolution window for any warranty claim, as NAS warranty claims are processed through the full supply chain: retailer, distributor, and vendor in Taiwan. A NAS running Immich as your primary photo archive should have an offsite backup strategy that can cover this period without data loss risk.
Related reading: our NAS buyer's guide.
Use our free Cloud vs NAS Cost Calculator to compare cloud storage against owning a NAS.
Can I run Immich on a Synology NAS?
Yes. Immich runs on Synology NAS units that support Container Manager (Docker). This includes most x86-based Synology models, including the DS425+, DS925+, DS1525+, and others. The Synology DS225+ is workable for smaller libraries. Arm-based models like the DS223J can run Immich but AI photo indexing will be significantly slower. Install Container Manager from the Synology Package Center, then follow the Immich Docker Compose installation guide on the Immich project website.
Does Immich work on Australian NBN connections behind CGNAT?
Yes, with the right remote access setup. Most Australian residential NBN plans use Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT), which blocks standard port forwarding. The recommended solution is Tailscale, a free peer-to-peer VPN service that works behind CGNAT. Install the Tailscale app on your NAS and your phone, and you can access Immich remotely without a static IP or open ports. Cloudflare Tunnels are an alternative for public-facing access. On your home network, Immich access is unaffected by CGNAT.
How does Immich compare to Google Photos for AI search and face recognition?
Google Photos has significantly better AI search, particularly for complex natural-language queries and large libraries at scale. Immich uses CLIP-based semantic search and has face clustering that works well for most family libraries, but the accuracy and speed of results lag behind Google Photos as of early 2026. Immich is improving rapidly with each release. For basic face grouping and subject search on a family library of under 100,000 photos, Immich is a practical alternative. For the depth of Google's AI search on a 500,000-photo library, Google Photos remains ahead.
What happens to my Immich photos if my NAS fails?
If your NAS fails, your Immich photos are at risk unless you have a separate backup. A NAS running Immich is one copy of your data. You need at least one additional copy offsite or in cloud storage (Backblaze B2, cloud sync, or a second NAS at a different location). The 3-2-1 rule applies: three copies, two different storage types, one offsite. RAID on your NAS protects against drive failure but does not protect against NAS hardware failure, theft, fire, or flood. Do not run Immich as your only copy of family photos.
Is Immich free?
Immich itself is free and open-source. There are no subscription fees for the software. The cost of running Immich is the NAS hardware, drives, and electricity. A basic Synology DS425+ setup with two 4 TB drives costs around $1,150 upfront from Australian retailers and roughly $25-40/year in electricity. Optional extras like cloud backup storage (for the offsite copy of your Immich library) have their own costs. There is no Immich subscription or per-user fee.
Can I migrate from Google Photos to Immich?
Yes. Use Google Takeout to export your entire Google Photos library as a ZIP archive. The export includes your photos in original quality along with JSON metadata files containing dates, locations, and album information. Immich can import Google Takeout archives directly via its import tool, which reads the JSON metadata and preserves dates and locations. The migration process for a large library takes time but is well-supported. Once migrated, you can disable Google Photos backup on your phone and switch to the Immich mobile app.
If you're planning a NAS for Immich, the NTKIT NAS Sizing Wizard can help you choose the right capacity and hardware configuration for your family's photo library size.
Try the NAS Sizing Wizard