# PhotoPrism 10 Hacker News commenters recommended PhotoPrism and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** People recommend PhotoPrism for indexing existing photo folders as they are, without changing files, and for self-hosted photo sharing. The main caveat is a weaker phone app. ## Why people recommend it - Indexes folders as they are (2 comments): "Photoprism is the best one I’ve found that will just take and index your folders as they are." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49539107)) "Photoprism just uses my files as they are without touching them" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46172111)) - Better feature set and UI (2 comments): "Much more responsive and clear UI, golang backend are two main subjective advantages." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46173390)) "PhotoPrism has the better feature set, in my opinion" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46175076)) - Happy with self-hosted photo sharing (2 comments): "I like Photoprism very much for the self-hosted photosharing use-case." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48937814)) "I'm very happy with Photoprism but the box is not always on" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49538761)) ## What people warn about - Weaker phone app than Immich (2 comments): "I really like Photoprism but Immich has such a better app experience imo" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49746589)) "the companion app on the phone is always the pain point" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49538777)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Immich](https://hackerapproved.com/p/immich.md): 296 recommend - [Google Photos](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-photos.md): 73 recommend - [Apple Photos](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-photos.md): 66 recommend - [digiKam](https://hackerapproved.com/p/digikam.md): 8 recommend - [Nextcloud Memories](https://hackerapproved.com/p/memories.md): 5 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "PhotoPrism", https://hackerapproved.com/p/photoprism/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).