Self-hosting my photos with Immich

Post by fijiaarone » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 2:17 PM UTC

jbstack wrote: post #229

lilyball wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? Why? If a NixOS module doesn’t support what you need, you can just write your own module, and the module system lets you disable existing modules if you need to. Doing anything custom this way still feels easier than doing it in an imperative world.

"Just" write your own module? Have you seen how bad the Nix documentation is and how challenging Nix (the language) is? Not to mention that you have to learn Yet Another Language just for this corner case, which you will not use for anything else. At least Guix uses a lisp variant so that some of the skills you gain are transferable (e.g. to Emacs, or even to a GP language like Common Lisp or Racket). Don't get me wr…

Post by zeendo » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 2:20 PM UTC

WD-42 wrote: post #71

euleriancon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are still some features that a miss from Google photos. There isn't any way (that I know of) to auto add pictures to an album based on the face. I used to have dedicated albums for family members, and it was nice to have the auto updated. Face recognition in general just isn't as good as Google Photos. It's still an amazing piece of software and I'd never go back, but it isn't perfect yet.

The /people page looks a lot like albums based on face to me, is that not what you are talking about?

Post by fijiaarone » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 2:26 PM UTC

teekert wrote: post #135

quag wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you update the software in the containers when new versions come out or vulnerabilities are actively being exploited? My understanding is that when using containers updating is an ordeal and you avoid the need my never exposing the services to the internet.

Your understanding of containers is incorrect! Containers decouple programs from their state. The state/data live outside the container so the container itself is disposable and can be discarded and rebuild cheaply. Of course there need to be some provisions for when the state (ie schema) needs to be updated by the containerized software. But that is the same as for non-containerized services. I'm a bit surprised thi…

Post by Liftyee » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 2:28 PM UTC

euleriancon wrote: post #42

WD-42 wrote: post #4

Self hosting used to mean conceding on something. I can honestly say Immich is better in every way than Google Photos or whatever Apple calls it. The only thing is having to set it up yourself.

There are still some features that a miss from Google photos. There isn't any way (that I know of) to auto add pictures to an album based on the face. I used to have dedicated albums for family members, and it was nice to have the auto updated. Face recognition in general just isn't as good as Google Photos. It's still an amazing piece of software and I'd never go back, but it isn't perfect yet.

Post by fijiaarone » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 2:29 PM UTC

conradev wrote: post #89

trizic wrote: post #56

There is something to be said about NixOS, it really is a matter of setting `services.immich.enable = true;` in a configuration file. I find this really powerful and simpler than docker and docker-compose. But don't get me wrong, I am all for containerization when it comes to other OS/distros. Yes, there is a learning curve for the Nix language and creating your own packages. But anyone who can install a distro can i…

This is my favorite use of CLI AI coding tools: updating my nix config. I can just ask my computer to configure services for me!