PhotoPrism
Hacker ApprovedRanked 4 of 8 photo managers by recommenders
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.
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.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 71%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Indexes folders as they are
“Photoprism is the best one I’ve found that will just take and index your folders as they are.”
Comment from 2 Sep 2026 in “Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage” “Photoprism just uses my files as they are without touching them”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Self-hosting my photos with Immich” Better feature set and UI
“Much more responsive and clear UI, golang backend are two main subjective advantages.”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Self-hosting my photos with Immich” “PhotoPrism has the better feature set, in my opinion”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Self-hosting my photos with Immich” Happy with self-hosted photo sharing
“I like Photoprism very much for the self-hosted photosharing use-case.”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Ente – Opening Our Books” “I'm very happy with Photoprism but the box is not always on”
Comment from 2 Sep 2026 in “Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Weaker phone app than Immich
“I really like Photoprism but Immich has such a better app experience imo”
Comment from 17 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: What self-hosted apps do you use daily?” “the companion app on the phone is always the pain point”
Comment from 2 Sep 2026 in “Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage”
Other photo managers people recommend
The four most recommended other photo managers, with 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 | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Immich | 296 | 65 | 82% | 12 | 1 yr33 owners | Approved |
| Google Photos | 73 | 143 | 34% | 12 | — | — |
| Apple Photos | 66 | 87 | 43% | 12 | — | — |
| PhotoPrismThis page | 10 | 4 | 71% | 4 | — | Approved |
| digiKam | 8 | 1 | 89% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
16 of the 17 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I really like Photoprism but Immich has such a better app experience imo”
“Photoprism is the best one I’ve found that will just take and index your folders as they are.”
“Sad to hear it hasn't improved in the mean time.”
“the companion app on the phone is always the pain point”
“I'm very happy with Photoprism but the box is not always on”
“I like Photoprism very much for the self-hosted photosharing use-case.”
“the Photoprism image also didn't work on IPv6 because of Traefik”
“photos require much more processing and focus on performance”
“PhotoPrism has the better feature set, in my opinion”
“Much more responsive and clear UI, golang backend are two main subjective advantages.”
“I've switched from photoprism to immich.”
“This was why I was driven to use Photoprism.”
“Photoprism just uses my files as they are without touching them”
“I would consider switching to another solution if it had in-browser basic editing (cropping, contrast / white balance adjustment, etc).”
“Photoprism also works so well I haven't even bothered to look for an app”
“setting up automatic backups and photo sync towards a self-hosted Immich/Photoprism instance is a lot easier on Android than on iOS”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.