Ente Photos
Hacker ApprovedCloud photo backup in Hosting & cloud
End-to-end encrypted photo backup with polished apps and automatic desktop export, without the burden of self-hosting; critics most often say its product focus and marketing are unclear.
43 people recommended Ente Photos in Hacker News comments, 9 had mixed feelings and 21 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026.
Summary written by Claude from 54 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 51 of those comments still count.
73 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 43
- mixed feelings
- 9
- warn against or regret it
- 21
The record
Recommended in 11 of 12 months
In 32 different threads.
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
Why it carries the badge
- 43 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 11 of 12 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
- Recommended in 32 threadsNeeds 5 or more, met.
- The biggest thread supplies 21% of its recommendersNeeds half or less, met.
The same rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. Mixed feelings count toward neither side. How the badge works
What people say about it
Reasons grouped from a sample of 40 of the 127 opinions about it, picked in proportion to how many people recommend it, have mixed feelings and criticize it. Each mark is one comment in the sample. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
End-to-end encrypted photo storage
“Being end-to-end encrypted buys some peace of mind knowing that it's not end of world if my homelab is compromised.”
Comment from 21 Sep 2026 in “Noodle Gallery – Self-hosted photo and video manager forked from Immich” “harder to setup but feels much more robust and its end to end encrypted, which I prefer”
Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “My Homelab Setup” “Ente has a killer feature of supporting actual end-to-end encryption for photos.”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “Local LLM by Ente” - Comment from 3 Jul 2026 in “Immich v3.0.0 Released”
- Comment from 15 Jul 2026 in “Privacy Incidents – Real-world examples of why your photos need protection”
- Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “How do I permanently disable Google Photos pop-up prompt to backup my photos?”
Continuous desktop export and sync
“I can pay them to give me an e2e encrypted cloud service, and then the desktop app has a continuous export feature”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Self-hosting my photos with Immich” “Now ente not only backs up to their e2ee cloud but its desktop app keeps those media synced”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Open-source iCloud Photos Downloader (AKA escape from iCloud)” “with an automated continuous export feature so that everything can go to my NAS”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help” Polished, feature-complete apps
“It’s a very refined and feature-complete product with e2ee. Many alternatives just don’t have feature parity”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Ente – Opening Our Books” “Ente is surprisingly well integrated with iOS, you really don’t need to use Apple’s solution.”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Open-source iCloud Photos Downloader (AKA escape from iCloud)” “all their products feel polished and I like their marketing mascots”
Comment from 3 Jul 2026 in “Immich v3.0.0 Released” No self-hosting burden
“if you're mostly looking for a solution to take your mind off the problem and don't want to self-host, try Ente photos”
Comment from 2 Sep 2026 in “Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage” “I get cloud convenience and no real self-hosting burden along with solid ownership of my data.”
Comment from 3 Jul 2026 in “Immich v3.0.0 Released” “Ente seems like a great alternative for anyone that doesn't want to self-host.”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Ente – Opening Our Books”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Unclear marketing and branding
“I think that they have great product(s) but terrible branding and apparently some growing pains as well.”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “Local LLM by Ente” “they need a marketing person, because I'm still not sure I know what they do”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Ente – Opening Our Books” “Usability fail at the marketing level doesn't help reach critical mass.”
Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “Ente – Opening Our Books” App crashes and reliability problems
“my Ente photos app crashes 20 times a day on iOS when using advanced functionality such as scrolling through my photos”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “Local LLM by Ente” “I'm much more worried about the Ente install getting broken for some reason and my pictures being locked and lost”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Self-hosting my photos with Immich” “I am losing trust that any of your products will see enough polishing any time soon.”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “Local LLM by Ente” Doubts about openness and encryption limits
“This is one of those vanity blog posts, a “look at us, we’re open” blog posts without actual openness”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Ente – Opening Our Books” “Nothing prevents Ente from grabbing the key and decrypting all the data at this point.”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Ente – Opening Our Books” “its good that they are very opaque regarding their sources of funding”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Ente's business metrics are open now” Unclear product focus, too many products
“I like Ente, but isn't their core product a photos application?”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “Local LLM by Ente”
What people recommend instead
The same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Mixed | Criticize | Approval | Months | Had for | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ente PhotosThis page | 43 | 9 | 21 | 67% | 11 | — | Approved |
| iCloud Photos | 10 | 7 | 45 | 18% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 127 opinions about it, picked in proportion to the three counts, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“not wanting to be the failure point of my families photos, doing backups etc.”
“Being end-to-end encrypted buys some peace of mind knowing that it's not end of world if my homelab is compromised.”
“if you're mostly looking for a solution to take your mind off the problem and don't want to self-host, try Ente photos”
“Since their backup solution is E2EE, it does everything on-device”
“Usability fail at the marketing level doesn't help reach critical mass.”
“I was talking about the pricing of the hosted service by Ente because Ente allows self hosting too”
“They said "ooh that looks nice" when they read Safe home for your photos”
“they need a marketing person, because I'm still not sure I know what they do”
“It’s a very refined and feature-complete product with e2ee. Many alternatives just don’t have feature parity”
“I tried Ente a while ago and am always impressed by their communication skills, but from a product side, I prefer Photoprism.”
“Nothing prevents Ente from grabbing the key and decrypting all the data at this point.”
“they cut through a lot of the bullshit developers and designers do on the web”
“Ente seems like a great alternative for anyone that doesn't want to self-host.”
“Compared to other photo storage platforms, your pricing seems a lot higher.”
“This is one of those vanity blog posts, a “look at us, we’re open” blog posts without actual openness”
“its good that they are very opaque regarding their sources of funding”
“I like end-to-end encryption and the clients are really high quality”
“If you want to host on an untrusted server, Ente is more to the point.”
“Ente has end-to-end encryption, which means I can host it on a random VPS.”
“self-hosted it completely by just following instructions from GLM 4.7 (didn't log in) and it works reliably”
“I get cloud convenience and no real self-hosting burden along with solid ownership of my data.”
“the mobile apps end up replicating your whole structure a little better”
“all their products feel polished and I like their marketing mascots”
“It also makes the seemingly much better decision of storing photos in S3.”
“I'm very happy to no longer be feeding all of that data into the Google machine”
“It is also more open and you can share an album link with someone and they can add their photos without signing up.”
“the mechanisms you propose seem rather complex to me compared to simply allowing albums/collections to be nested”
“I am losing trust that any of your products will see enough polishing any time soon.”
“I think that they have great product(s) but terrible branding and apparently some growing pains as well.”
“Ente has a killer feature of supporting actual end-to-end encryption for photos.”
“my Ente photos app crashes 20 times a day on iOS when using advanced functionality such as scrolling through my photos”
“the small grimlin that sits in the Ente app is not as smart as the grimlin that sits in the Claude app”
“I like Ente, but isn't their core product a photos application?”
“Ente is extremely well known in the privacy circles, so this is not just some random company with a random app out of nowhere.”
“harder to setup but feels much more robust and its end to end encrypted, which I prefer”
“Now ente not only backs up to their e2ee cloud but its desktop app keeps those media synced”
“Ente is surprisingly well integrated with iOS, you really don’t need to use Apple’s solution.”
“with an automated continuous export feature so that everything can go to my NAS”
“I can pay them to give me an e2e encrypted cloud service, and then the desktop app has a continuous export feature”
“I'm much more worried about the Ente install getting broken for some reason and my pictures being locked and lost”
Counts come from 1,791,911 Hacker News comments labeled by Claude, November 2025 to October 2026, with data through October 31, 2026. Counts updated 2 Nov 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.