Private and open-source alternatives to Amazon Photos
9 photo management rated against the same public privacy criteria as Amazon Photos, with our picks first.
Why look for an alternative?
- Open source: no. Closed source.
- No trackers or telemetry: no. The Android app includes the Branch and MoEngage trackers.
- No ads or data sales: no. No ads in the app, but Amazon's privacy notice, which covers Amazon Photos, uses personal information for interest-based advertising.
- Independent audit: no. No independent audit is published.
See the full Amazon Photos rating.
The alternatives
Aves Grade B
Gallery and metadata explorer for Android that handles images, videos and formats such as multi-page TIFF, SVG, motion photos and panoramas, with albums, tags, maps and search.
Aves scores 80 out of 100 (grade B) on the photo management criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
digiKam Grade B
Desktop photo management app from the KDE community for importing, organizing, tagging, searching and editing large photo libraries, including RAW files, face recognition and metadata editing.
digiKam scores 80 out of 100 (grade B) on the photo management criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
Fossify Gallery Grade B
Offline photo and video gallery for Android with albums, a basic photo editor, EXIF metadata removal and hidden folders. It does not request internet access.
Fossify Gallery scores 80 out of 100 (grade B) on the photo management criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
LibrePhotos Grade B
Self-hosted photo and video management server with a web interface, timeline view, multiple users, face recognition, object and scene detection, semantic search and automatically generated event albums.
LibrePhotos scores 80 out of 100 (grade B) on the photo management criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
Lychee Grade B
Self-hosted photo management and sharing app with a web interface for uploading, organizing and sharing albums. An optional paid Supporter Edition adds extra features such as watermarking and statistics.
Lychee scores 80 out of 100 (grade B) on the photo management criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
Ente Photos Grade C
End-to-end encrypted photo and video backup and sharing, with apps for mobile, desktop and web. The server is open source and can be self-hosted.
Based in the United States (Five Eyes). Ente Photos scores 70 out of 100 (grade C) on the photo management criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no ads or data sales and independent audit.
Immich Grade C
Self-hosted photo and video backup and management server, with automatic mobile upload, timeline view, albums, search and facial recognition.
Immich scores 65 out of 100 (grade C) on the photo management criteria. It meets 2 of 4 criteria: open source and no ads or data sales.
Piwigo Grade C
Photo gallery software for publishing and managing large photo collections on the web, with albums, tags, user permissions, plugins and mobile apps. It can be self-hosted or used as a paid hosted service from its developers.
Based in France (Nine Eyes). Piwigo scores 65 out of 100 (grade C) on the photo management criteria. It meets 2 of 4 criteria: open source and no ads or data sales.
PhotoPrism Grade D
Self-hosted photo management app with a web interface that indexes a photo library and adds automatic tagging, face recognition, maps and search. A free Community Edition is available, with paid memberships adding extra features.
Based in Germany (Fourteen Eyes). PhotoPrism scores 50 out of 100 (grade D) on the photo management criteria. It meets 1 of 4 criteria: no ads or data sales.