Synology Photos vs Google Photos — NAS Photo Management Guide

Synology Photos running on a local NAS gives you unlimited, private photo storage with no monthly fees, while Google Photos locks you into a subscription once you exceed 15GB of free storage. And for most Australian households, the NAS pays for itself within three to four years. Google Photos is undeniably convenient: its AI search is best-in-class, the mobile app is polished, and sharing is effortless. But that convenience comes at the cost of privacy, ongoing subscription fees, and zero control over your data. Synology Photos on a NAS like the DS225+ ($549 at Scorptec, $585 at Mwave) or DS223 ($489 at Mwave/Scorptec) delivers a comparable mobile experience with automatic phone backup, face and object recognition, shared albums, and a timeline view. All while keeping your photos on hardware you own, in your home, under your control. This guide breaks down the real differences, the true costs in Australian dollars, and which setup suits which type of user.

For a broader overview of this topic, see our complete Synology ecosystem guide.

Why This Comparison Matters in 2026

Google killed unlimited free photo storage in June 2021. Since then, every photo you take counts against your 15GB of free Google storage. Shared with Gmail and Google Drive. For any serious photographer or family with kids, that 15GB fills up in months. The path Google wants you on is Google One: $44.99/month for 2TB in Australia, or $13.99/month for 100GB. Over five years, the 2TB plan costs $2,699. Meanwhile, Synology has steadily improved Synology Photos from a basic gallery into a genuine Google Photos competitor with AI-powered face recognition, object detection, timeline browsing, and a mobile app that handles automatic phone backup. The gap between the two has never been smaller. But each still has clear strengths. If you’re weighing up whether to keep paying Google or invest in a NAS, this is the comparison you need.

Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Storage Costs: Google One vs NAS Running Costs

The cost argument is where NAS storage pulls decisively ahead. But only if you plan to keep your photos for more than three years. Here’s the real maths for Australian buyers:

Google One pricing in Australia (as of February 2026):

• 100GB: $13.99/month ($167.88/year)
• 2TB: $44.99/month ($539.88/year)

Most families with 50,000+ photos and videos will need the 2TB tier within a year or two. That’s $2,699 over five years. And if your library keeps growing, you’ll eventually need to step up again.

NAS cost for equivalent storage:

• Synology DS223 ($489 at Mwave/Scorptec) + 2x Synology Plus 4TB drives (~$445 each at Scorptec) = roughly $1,087 total for 4TB usable in SHR/RAID 1
• Synology DS225+ ($549 at Scorptec, $585 at Mwave) + 2x 4TB drives = roughly $1,147-$1,183 total for 4TB usable with faster AI indexing
• Running costs: a 2-bay Synology NAS draws 15-20W, costing roughly $40-$55 per year in electricity at typical Australian rates (30-35c/kWh)

So your total 5-year cost for a NAS is approximately $1,290-$1,460 (hardware + electricity), compared with $2,699 for Google One 2TB. That’s a saving of $1,200-$1,400 over five years, and the gap widens every year after that because the NAS has no ongoing subscription. For a detailed cost breakdown comparing NAS and cloud storage options, see our NAS vs Cloud Storage Australia guide.

Privacy: Where Google Photos Falls Short

This is the issue that drives many people toward NAS storage in the first place. When you upload photos to Google Photos, they live on Google’s servers. Google’s AI processes them for face grouping, object detection, location tagging, and search indexing. Google’s privacy policy states they don’t use your photos for advertising purposes, but your images are still scanned by automated systems. And they’re stored in data centres you don’t control, in jurisdictions you can’t choose.

For most people, this is an acceptable trade-off for convenience. But for photographers with commercial work, families who want full control over images of their children, or anyone who’s simply uncomfortable with a tech company holding decades of personal memories, a NAS changes the equation entirely. With Synology Photos, every photo stays on your NAS, on your network, in your home. Face recognition runs locally on the NAS CPU. No images are sent to Synology’s servers for processing. Your photos never leave your hardware unless you explicitly share them.

For professional and semi-professional photographers, this is especially relevant. See our Best NAS for Photography Australia guide for hardware recommendations tailored to large RAW libraries and editing workflows.

AI Features: Google’s Advantage and Synology’s Progress

Google Photos has the best AI search in any photo platform, full stop. You can type "dog at the beach" or "birthday cake 2023" and it returns accurate results almost instantly. This is the product of billions of dollars in machine learning investment and server-side processing across Google’s entire user base. No NAS application comes close to this level of search intelligence.

Synology Photos offers face recognition and object/scene detection (it can identify people, animals, landscapes, food, and other categories), but the search is more basic. You can filter by person, by date, by location (if EXIF GPS data exists), and by general category. But you can’t do natural-language queries like Google. The AI processing happens locally on the NAS CPU, which means two things: your photos stay private, but indexing is slower. On a DS223 with its Realtek CPU, expect the initial scan of a 100,000-photo library to take several days. On a DS225+ with its Intel Celeron, the same library indexes in under 24 hours.

Google also offers Magic Eraser (object removal), auto-enhance, collage creation, and animated memories. Features that Synology Photos simply doesn’t have. If advanced AI editing and smart curation are core to how you interact with your photos, Google Photos remains the stronger platform. If you primarily want to store, browse, and share photos without the AI bells and whistles, Synology Photos is more than capable.

Mobile App Experience

The Google Photos mobile app is one of the best-designed apps on any platform. It’s fast, intuitive, and tightly integrated with Android (it’s the default gallery app on most Android phones). The Synology Photos mobile app is competent but not in the same league for polish. That said, it handles the core jobs well:

• Auto-backup: Both apps automatically upload new photos and videos from your phone. Google uploads to the cloud; Synology uploads to your NAS (over local Wi-Fi first, or via QuickConnect/DDNS when remote).
• Browse and search: Both offer timeline views and album browsing. Google’s search is significantly better. Synology’s browse experience is adequate but can feel sluggish on budget NAS hardware.
• Sharing: Google Photos makes sharing effortless. Links, shared albums, partner sharing, and shared libraries. Synology Photos supports shared albums and link-based sharing, but it’s less intuitive and requires the recipient to either have a NAS account or use a shared link.
• Offline access: Google Photos caches recently viewed images but requires internet for the full library. Synology Photos on your home Wi-Fi gives you full access to everything with no internet dependency at all. A genuine advantage during NBN outages.

The honest assessment: if you’re switching from Google Photos to Synology Photos, expect the mobile experience to be about 70-80% as polished. It does all the essential things, but Google’s decade-plus head start in app development shows. Most users adjust within a week or two.

Offline Access and NBN Considerations for Australians

This is one area where a NAS wins outright. Google Photos is a cloud service. If your internet goes down, you lose access to your photo library (aside from whatever’s cached on your device). With a NAS, your photos live on your local network. If the NBN drops out. And anyone on Australian broadband knows this happens. You still have full access to every photo and video on the NAS from any device on your home Wi-Fi.

For remote access to a NAS from outside your home, NBN upload speeds become relevant. On a typical NBN 100 plan, you get around 20-40Mbps upload, which is adequate for browsing thumbnails and viewing individual photos remotely but not ideal for streaming 4K video from the NAS. The DS225+ with its 2.5GbE port helps on the local side, but the internet bottleneck is your NBN upload. Not the NAS hardware.

Sharing: Google Wins on Convenience, Synology Wins on Control

Google Photos sharing is effortless. Shared albums, partner sharing (where your partner automatically sees all photos of specific people), and shared libraries are all built-in and work with anyone who has a Google account. Which is almost everyone. The collaborative experience is seamless and requires no technical knowledge from recipients.

Synology Photos offers a "Shared Space" where multiple NAS users can contribute to a common photo library, plus individual shared albums and public link sharing (with optional password protection and expiry dates). For family use within the household, this works well. Each family member gets their own NAS account with a private photo space, and the shared space acts as the family album. Sharing with people outside the household is less polished: they either need to access a shared link (which works in a browser but isn’t app-integrated) or you need to set them up with a NAS account and QuickConnect access.

If you frequently share photos with extended family or friends who aren’t tech-savvy, Google Photos is the easier path. If your primary sharing needs are within your household and you value control over who sees what, Synology’s approach is more than adequate.

Which Synology NAS to Buy for Photo Management

If you’ve decided a NAS is the right move, the next question is which model. Synology is the clear choice for photo management because Synology Photos is genuinely the best photo app in the NAS market. QNAP has QuMagie and Asustor has Photo Gallery, but neither matches Synology Photos for the phone-backup-plus-gallery experience that Google Photos users expect. For the full Synology range, see our Synology NAS Australia guide and Best Synology NAS ranking.

Budget Pick: Synology DS223 ($489)

The DS223 is a two-bay NAS with a Realtek RTD1619B quad-core CPU and 2GB RAM. It runs Synology Photos capably for libraries up to around 100,000 photos. Face recognition indexing is noticeably slower than Intel-based models. The initial scan of a large library takes several days rather than hours. Day-to-day browsing and phone backup are responsive once indexed. Available at Mwave for $489 and Scorptec for $489. This suits individuals or small families with moderate photo libraries who want to spend as little as possible on the NAS itself.

Best for Photos: Synology DS225+ ($549-$599)

The DS225+ is the model that makes Synology Photos feel closest to Google Photos. Its Intel Celeron quad-core CPU handles face and object recognition dramatically faster than the DS223. A 200,000-photo library that takes the DS223 days to index completes in under 24 hours on the DS225+. The 2.5GbE Ethernet port means faster local transfers when moving your initial library onto the NAS. Available at Scorptec for $549, Mwave for $585, and PLE for $599. The DS225+ suits families with large or growing photo libraries, anyone who shoots a lot of video, and users who plan to run other Synology packages alongside Photos.

Growing Library: Synology DS425+ ($819-$999)

If your photo and video collection exceeds 4TB or you expect it to grow significantly, a four-bay NAS gives you more expandability. The DS425+ offers four drive bays with the same Intel Celeron CPU as the DS225+. With four 8TB drives in SHR, you get roughly 24TB of usable, redundancy-protected storage. Enough for hundreds of thousands of RAW photos and years of 4K video. Available at Scorptec for $819, Mwave for $899, and PLE for $999. The DS425+ suits serious photographers, videographers, and families who use the NAS for more than just photos (Plex, Time Machine backups, file sharing, Docker containers).

The Hybrid Approach: Use Both

You don’t have to choose one or the other. A practical setup for many Australian families is to use Synology Photos as the primary photo library (local storage, auto phone backup, family shared albums) and keep Google Photos on the free 15GB tier as a secondary backup for your most important images. Some users set their phone to backup to both simultaneously. Synology Photos handles the full library locally, while Google Photos keeps a safety copy of the most recent photos in the cloud.

This hybrid approach gives you the best of both worlds: local ownership and privacy for the bulk of your library, plus Google’s seamless cloud access for the subset you want available everywhere. It also means you have an off-site copy of at least some photos, which is critical. A NAS is not a backup by itself. For a proper backup strategy that protects against fire, theft, and hardware failure, see our 3-2-1 Backup Strategy Guide.

Who Should Stick with Google Photos

Google Photos remains the better option for certain users. Don’t switch to a NAS if:

• You rely heavily on AI search and editing. If you regularly use Magic Eraser, natural-language photo search (“dog at the beach in 2024”), or Google’s auto-created movies and collages, no NAS app replicates this.
• You share constantly with non-technical people. Google Photos sharing is frictionless. NAS sharing requires more setup and is less intuitive for recipients.
• You have a small library. If your photo collection fits comfortably within 100GB, Google One at $13.99/month is cheaper than any NAS solution for the first five years.
• You have no interest in hardware. A NAS requires initial setup, occasional maintenance (DSM updates, drive health checks), and a willingness to troubleshoot. Google Photos requires nothing.
• Remote access is your primary use case. If you spend most of your time accessing photos away from home on mobile data, Google’s cloud delivery is faster and more reliable than remote NAS access over typical Australian NBN upload speeds.

Who Should Switch to Synology Photos on a NAS

A NAS with Synology Photos is the stronger long-term choice if:

• Your library is large and growing. Once you pass 200GB of photos, the five-year cost of cloud storage starts to exceed the cost of owning a NAS outright.
• Privacy matters to you. Your family photos stay on your hardware, processed by your CPU, never scanned by a third party.
• You want multi-purpose hardware. A NAS doesn’t just do photos. It handles Time Machine backups, file sharing, Plex media serving, Docker containers, and more. Google Photos does photos only.
• You have a family. Synology Photos supports multiple user accounts, each with private photo spaces and access to shared family albums. Each person’s phone backs up to their own space on the NAS.
• You’re already paying for Google One 2TB or higher. The NAS breaks even within four years and saves you money every year after that.

If you’re also considering replacing iCloud Photos at the same time, our Replace iCloud Photos with a NAS guide covers the full migration process step by step.

Synology Photos vs Google Photos. Pros and Cons Summary

Synology Photos on NAS

Google Photos

Synology Photos' remote access relies on QuickConnect or a direct connection. Our NBN Remote Access Reality Checker checks your ISP's CGNAT policy and upload speed to tell you which approach will work.

Related reading: our NAS buyer's guide.

If you're exploring AI photo use cases, see our guide on AI-powered photo search on NAS.

Use our free NAS Sizing Wizard to get a personalised NAS recommendation.

Use our free Cloud vs NAS Cost Calculator to compare cloud storage against owning a NAS.

Is Synology Photos as good as Google Photos?

For storage, backup, and basic browsing, Synology Photos is a capable alternative. For AI-powered search, editing tools, and sharing convenience, Google Photos is still ahead. Synology Photos handles automatic phone backup, face recognition, shared albums, and timeline browsing well. Which covers the core needs of most users. Where it falls short is natural-language search (you can’t search “sunset at the beach”) and advanced editing features like Magic Eraser. If your primary need is safe, private, unlimited photo storage with a decent mobile app, Synology Photos delivers. If you rely on Google’s AI features daily, nothing on a NAS matches that yet.

Can I access my Synology NAS photos from anywhere like Google Photos?

Yes, but with caveats. Synology’s free QuickConnect service lets you access your NAS from anywhere via a relay through Synology’s servers. Performance is adequate for browsing photos but noticeably slower than Google Photos’ direct cloud delivery. For faster remote access, set up DDNS and port forwarding to create a direct connection. But this requires a public IP address, which some Australian ISPs don’t provide due to CGNAT. Aussie Broadband, Superloop, and Launtel typically offer public IPs on request. Alternatively, a Tailscale or WireGuard VPN tunnel works around CGNAT. On your home Wi-Fi, access is instant and doesn’t depend on internet speed at all.

How much does it cost to run a Synology NAS for photo storage in Australia?

The upfront cost for a two-bay Synology NAS with two 4TB drives is approximately $1,087-$1,183 depending on the model (DS223 at $489 or DS225+ at $549-$585, plus two Synology Plus 4TB drives at $299 each from Scorptec). Ongoing electricity costs are roughly $40-$55 per year at Australian rates (30-35c/kWh) for a NAS drawing 15-20W. There are no subscription fees, no per-photo charges, and no storage limits beyond the physical capacity of your drives. Over five years, the total cost is approximately $1,290-$1,460 compared to $2,699 for Google One’s 2TB plan.

Does Synology Photos support face recognition like Google Photos?

Yes. Synology Photos includes face recognition that groups photos by person, similar to Google Photos. The key difference is that Synology processes face recognition locally on the NAS CPU rather than on cloud servers. This means it’s slower. The initial indexing of a large library takes hours to days depending on your NAS model. But your photos are never sent to any external server for processing. On the DS225+ with its Intel Celeron CPU, a 200,000-photo library indexes in under 24 hours. On the DS223 with its Realtek CPU, the same library takes several days. Once indexed, browsing by person is responsive on either model. Accuracy is good but not quite at Google’s level, which benefits from training on billions of images.

Can I migrate my Google Photos library to a Synology NAS?

Yes. Use Google Takeout (takeout.google.com) to export your entire Google Photos library as ZIP files. Google packages your photos into downloadable archives (up to 50GB each), which typically takes a few hours to a few days to prepare depending on library size. Download the ZIPs to your computer, extract them, and copy the photos to the /photo folder on your Synology NAS via SMB or the DSM File Station. Synology Photos will automatically scan and index the imported photos, including face recognition. One caveat: Google Takeout exports separate JSON files for metadata (location, descriptions) that Synology Photos doesn’t automatically import. The EXIF data embedded in the image files is preserved, but Google-specific metadata may be lost.

Is a NAS safe enough for my only copy of family photos?

No. A NAS with RAID (or Synology’s SHR) protects against a single drive failure, but it does not protect against theft, fire, flooding, ransomware, or accidental deletion. A NAS is a storage device, not a backup. You should always maintain at least one additional copy of important photos. Ideally off-site. Options include Synology’s Hyper Backup to an external USB drive (kept at a relative’s house or office), Hyper Backup to a cloud service like Backblaze B2 or Synology C2, or a second NAS at a different location. For the full strategy, see our 3-2-1 Backup Strategy Guide.

Do I need a Synology Plus model for Synology Photos, or will a budget model work?

Budget models like the DS223 and DS124 run Synology Photos fine for basic use. Phone backup, browsing, and shared albums all work. The difference is in AI processing speed: face and object recognition indexing is significantly slower on the Realtek-based budget models compared to the Intel-based Plus models (DS225+, DS425+, DS925+). If your library is under 50,000 photos and you don’t mind waiting a few days for the initial index, a budget model saves you money. If your library is larger, you shoot a lot of video, or you want the most responsive experience, a Plus model is worth the extra $60-$100. The DS225+ at $549 (Scorptec) is the sweet spot for most photo-focused users.