Tldr:
- 16GB: free
- 150GB: €30/yr
- 1TB: €100/yr
- Encrypted
- Likely on-server, because they have AI facial recognition for searching photos by face.
- Based on Immich
Well that’s quite some prices. Google just informed me that our family has used 83% of our space and our next tier is 2TB for 10e/month.
The 1TB plan for Pixel Union is also €10/mo. I wanted to note the yearly price, since that’s usually the cheapest, but if you’re paying monthly, expect that.
They also have add-on pricing for additional storage needs, which you can find via a slider on their pricing page, up to 20TB.
That’s still twice the price
It’s their only service, they make money by customers paying them to host their photos. They don’t subsidise by crawling through all of your photos, mails, documents and then use that information to display Search and YouTube ads getting money from advertisement seals.
If its too expensive for you then it’s what it is, but it’s unrealistic to expect small scale competitors to outperform big tech offerings on every front.
Got into self-hosting for this very reason. I’ve been running immich (the FOSS basis underneath Pixelunion) for 1.5 years now. I’ve even bought a server license to support the team. It’s ridiculously good software!
Note that I’m not even a techie or network guy by trade (though I’ve travelled far down the rabbit hole since). Spinning up immich on a local computer (not even a dedicated server) to make backups is relatively easy. If I could do it, it’s not unlikely you can, too.
I use three 1TB drives for all my photos and files (so three replicates). One is a NAS connected to my router, the other is in my bedroom and the third is offsite (should the house burn down). Works like a kiss.
