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Comparison · Collab
Immich vs PhotoPrism
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Immich and PhotoPrism — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:self-hostedface-recognition
Immich vs PhotoPrism: at a glance
What is Immich?
Immich's 3.4 candidate adds passkeys and built-in backups.
Immich released v3.3 candidates in early October with people management, TensorRT-RTX acceleration, birthday memories and lighter ML models, and the first v3.4 candidate on 30 October. 3.4 rc.1 adds passkey sign-in, built-in backups using restic's parallel scan, JPEG XL decoding and encoding, mobile tags and workflow filters, plus a block of security fixes around shared links, partner timelines, symlinks and OAuth cookies.
What is PhotoPrism?
PhotoPrism now lets AI assistants search your photo library over MCP.
PhotoPrism's 29 October release adds OAuth for outside apps and MCP tools so AI assistants can search and browse a library within account permissions, enabled by default and switchable per account. It also adds experimental PostgreSQL support with a database transfer command and an export dialog. September brought new face detection and embedding models plus private and hidden people; October 7 moved classification and NSFW detection to ONNX with GPU support and dropped custom TensorFlow models.
Immich vs PhotoPrism: editorial side-by-side
Immich
2.5COLLAB
Immich's 3.4 candidate adds passkeys and built-in backups.
◆ Current state
Immich released v3.3 candidates in early October with people management, TensorRT-RTX acceleration, birthday memories and lighter ML models, and the first v3.4 candidate on 30 October. 3.4 rc.1 adds passkey sign-in, built-in backups using restic's parallel scan, JPEG XL decoding and encoding, mobile tags and workflow filters, plus a block of security fixes around shared links, partner timelines, symlinks and OAuth cookies.
◆ Where it's heading
Each minor now runs through three or four public candidates before release. The 3.x line moved from discovery features (search, faces, memories) toward running Immich safely as a household's primary photo store: sharing controls, authentication and backups.
◆ Prediction
v3.4.0 stable should follow after one or two more candidates. Restoring from the new backups inside Immich is the natural follow-up if it isn't already part of 3.4.
PhotoPrism
6.3COLLAB
PhotoPrism now lets AI assistants search your photo library over MCP.
◆ Current state
PhotoPrism's 29 October release adds OAuth for outside apps and MCP tools so AI assistants can search and browse a library within account permissions, enabled by default and switchable per account. It also adds experimental PostgreSQL support with a database transfer command and an export dialog. September brought new face detection and embedding models plus private and hidden people; October 7 moved classification and NSFW detection to ONNX with GPU support and dropped custom TensorFlow models.
◆ Where it's heading
The vision stack is now fully ONNX and GPU-capable, and the library itself is becoming something other tools can query. PostgreSQL support breaks the long MariaDB/SQLite limit for larger installs.
◆ Prediction
PostgreSQL leaving experimental status and MCP gaining more than read-only search are the likely next steps, given both arrived in first form here.
Alternatives to Immich and PhotoPrism
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 PhotoPrism.
Komga
Komga's NextUI beta keeps gaining features while the old UI gets only translations.
Capacities
Capacities adds whiteboards and a global graph to its object-based notes.
Guru
Guru's Knowledge Agents get the plumbing that makes their answers checkable and safe.
EGroupware
EGroupware retires 23.1 and keeps shipping security fixes every week or two.
Trilium Notes
Trilium rebuilt its kanban board, then shipped an urgent server security fix.
See all Immich alternatives → · See all PhotoPrism alternatives →
Recent activity from Immich and PhotoPrism
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2d agoImmichv3.4 RC adds passkeys, built-in backups and JPEG XL
- 3d agoPhotoPrismPhotoPrism adds MCP access for AI assistants and PostgreSQL ⚡
- 26d agoPhotoPrismClassification moves to ONNX with NVIDIA GPU support
- 1mo agoImmichv3.3 RC2 refines person sharing before release
- 1mo agoImmichv3.3 RC1 continues person-sharing work
- 1mo agoImmichv3.3 RC adds people management and TensorRT-RTX
- 1mo agoPhotoPrismNew face models and private or hidden people
- 1mo agoImmichv3.2.0 RC3: bug fixes before stable release
- 2mo agoImmichv3.2.0 RC2: search UI and face merge bug fixes
- 3mo agoPhotoPrism360° media, 16K thumbnails and an inline PDF viewer ⚡
- 5mo agoPhotoPrismDisk-space threshold halts indexing before volumes fill
- 5mo agoPhotoPrismONNX pipeline replaces Pigo; vision models become configuration ⚡
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Immich and PhotoPrism?
Both compete on the same themes — self-hosted, face-recognition — within Collab. PhotoPrism is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 2.5), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Immich better than PhotoPrism?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. PhotoPrism is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 2.5), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. 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 PhotoPrism?
Top PhotoPrism alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "PhotoPrism alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/photoprism for the full list with editorial commentary on each.