Hive
Hive is quietly maturing Buzz AI from a novelty into operational workflow infrastructure, adding OAuth sharing and capacity-aware planning.
Comparison · Collab
Immich vs Joplin
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Immich and Joplin — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:open-source
Immich vs Joplin: at a glance
What is Immich?
Immich's v3.2 RC ships a new search UI and face clustering, advancing self-hosted photo discovery.
Immich is in active release cadence: v3.0 landed workflows, plugins, mobile editing, HLS streaming, and OCR; v3.2 is now in its third RC with a new search UI, face cluster groups, and a rebuilt search API. The RC turnaround pace suggests the team is in cleanup mode ahead of a stable release. It's a self-hosted Google Photos alternative with a large community of contributors across server, mobile, and web.
What is Joplin?
Joplin adds AI chat, semantic search, and an MCP server — local-first notes just became an AI knowledge hub.
Joplin is a privacy-first, open-source note-taking app with strong cross-platform sync, end-to-end encryption, and an active plugin ecosystem. Version 3.7 marked a sharp pivot: the app shipped an AI chat panel, semantic search, and a built-in MCP server — features that let LLMs read and write your notes either via Joplin Cloud AI or a locally-hosted model, with no data leaving your machine in the local case. The open-source, offline-first positioning is now a genuine differentiator against closed AI-first note tools.
Immich vs Joplin: editorial side-by-side
Immich
6.3COLLAB
Immich's v3.2 RC ships a new search UI and face clustering, advancing self-hosted photo discovery.
◆ Current state
Immich is in active release cadence: v3.0 landed workflows, plugins, mobile editing, HLS streaming, and OCR; v3.2 is now in its third RC with a new search UI, face cluster groups, and a rebuilt search API. The RC turnaround pace suggests the team is in cleanup mode ahead of a stable release. It's a self-hosted Google Photos alternative with a large community of contributors across server, mobile, and web.
◆ Where it's heading
The product is moving from Google Photos parity toward differentiation through extensibility and AI-assisted organization. Workflows and plugins opened the automation surface in v3.0; the new search UI and cluster groups in v3.2 close the discovery gap. That combination — automation plus better semantic search — is the basis for a self-hosted photo library that replaces cloud products in daily use rather than just archiving them.
◆ Prediction
v3.2 stable will ship within days given the current RC pace. After that, expect the workflow engine to get additional triggers and actions, and possibly AI-assisted album creation tied to the new cluster groups and search API.
Joplin
3.8COLLAB
Joplin adds AI chat, semantic search, and an MCP server — local-first notes just became an AI knowledge hub.
◆ Current state
Joplin is a privacy-first, open-source note-taking app with strong cross-platform sync, end-to-end encryption, and an active plugin ecosystem. Version 3.7 marked a sharp pivot: the app shipped an AI chat panel, semantic search, and a built-in MCP server — features that let LLMs read and write your notes either via Joplin Cloud AI or a locally-hosted model, with no data leaving your machine in the local case. The open-source, offline-first positioning is now a genuine differentiator against closed AI-first note tools.
◆ Where it's heading
Joplin is evolving from a sync-and-edit foundation toward a local-first AI knowledge base. The MCP server, semantic search, and plugin LLM API introduced in 3.7 collectively turn Joplin into a node in agentic workflows — not just a document store. Prior releases (3.2–3.6) systematically closed the gap with commercial note apps on UX, mobile parity, and import fidelity; 3.7 signals the team is now ready to build on that foundation with AI capabilities that respect the privacy guarantees users came for.
◆ Prediction
The most likely next move is maturing the 3.7 AI features out of beta and expanding Joplin Cloud AI as a revenue driver, while the plugin API's new LLM hooks spawn third-party automation tools. The Rocketbook and HTR integrations announced in late 2024 are still outstanding; expect one of those to land in 3.8 or 3.9 as the partnership with the French government institution matures.
Alternatives to Immich and Joplin
Other Collab products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Immich or Joplin.
AFFiNE
AFFiNE is grinding through canary bug fixes — self-hosted config gaps, proxy correctness, and editor invariants — while adding iOS sharing and multi-account workspace flows.
Asana
Asana ships HIPAA for Gov and deepens AI-assisted rule management while completing its rich-text document overhaul.
SiYuan
SiYuan 3.8.3 ships remote kernel access and tabbed blocks, hardening its self-hosted collaborative future.
Teable
Teable is assembling an agentic data platform — Scraper catalog, credential governance, and compute lineage are converging fast.
GitHub
GitHub ships GPT-6 Astra into Copilot while GHES 3.22 extends AI to enterprise self-hosted
See all Immich alternatives → · See all Joplin alternatives →
Recent activity from Immich and Joplin
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 5d agoImmichv3.2.0 RC3: bug fixes before stable release
- 9d agoImmichv3.2.0 RC2: search UI and face merge bug fixes
- 10d agoJoplinWhat's new in Joplin 3.7 ⚡
- 12d agoImmichv3.2.0 RC1: new search UI, face cluster groups, memories view ⚡
- 13d agoImmichv3.2.0-rc.0: fix: build release branch images instead of re-tagging main (#31064)
- 2mo agoImmichv3.0.0 RC3: webhook actions and bug fixes
- 2mo agoImmichv3.0.0 RC2: bug fixes ahead of stable release
- 4mo agoJoplinWhat's new in Joplin 3.6
- 6mo agoJoplinIntroducing our Warrant Canary
- 7mo agoJoplinJoplin will come preloaded on the HMD Terra M
- 8mo agoJoplinWhat's new in Joplin 3.5
- 11mo agoJoplinWhat's new in Joplin 3.4
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Immich and Joplin?
Both compete on the same themes — open-source — within Collab. Immich is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 3.8), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 1. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Immich better than Joplin?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Immich is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 3.8), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 1. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Collab products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Immich?
Top Immich alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Immich alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/immich for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Joplin?
Top Joplin alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Joplin alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/joplin for the full list with editorial commentary on each.