Top Drawer, Immich, PhotoPrism and Ente compared
If you want your photos off the big clouds, you have good options. Immich, PhotoPrism and Ente are all established, and all respect your privacy more than the default apps on your phone. Here is how they compare with each other and with what we're building in Top Drawer.
At a glance
| Top Drawer | Immich | PhotoPrism | Ente | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where your library lives | Your own hardware | Your own hardware | Your own hardware | Ente's cloud, or your own server if you self-host |
| Official apps | iPhone, iPad, Mac and web. Android, Windows and Linux in development | iPhone, Android and web | Web app. Phone apps are made by other developers | iPhone, Android, web, Mac, Windows and Linux |
| AI search in plain words | Yes, on your server or computer, or a virtual server you choose | Yes, on your hardware | Classification, faces and search filters | Yes, on your devices |
| AI inside videos | Understands videos scene by scene and finds the exact moment | Looks at the video's thumbnail | Not documented | Not documented |
| Keeping some photos apart | Nightstand: its own key and lock, with AI, captions and posting made for your most personal content | Locked folder behind a PIN | A "private" flag that hides photos from search and albums | A hidden section behind your device lock |
| Encryption | Encrypted at rest with a key only you hold | Not documented | Not documented | End-to-end encrypted |
Details about other apps come from their own websites and documentation, September 2026. “Not documented” means we couldn’t find the feature there.
Immich
Immich is the best-known self-hosted photo app. It is open source and has polished phone apps and a web app. It backs up your camera roll automatically, groups faces, reads text in photos, and lets you search in plain words, with the AI running on your own hardware. Its documentation says its machine learning works on a video's thumbnail, so it won't find a moment in the middle of a video. It runs in Docker, which suits people who are comfortable running their own server software.
PhotoPrism
PhotoPrism is an open-source library built around a web app that also installs on your phone's home screen. It classifies photos by content and location, recognises faces, and has powerful search filters. Native phone apps exist, but they are made by other developers, not by PhotoPrism. A free community edition is available, with paid memberships for extra features and support.
Ente
Ente is an end-to-end encrypted photo service with apps on every major platform. Face grouping and natural-language search run on your own devices. It is mainly a paid cloud service with a free tier, and it is open source, so you can run the server yourself instead.
Apps from NAS makers
If you own a NAS, it probably came with a photo app, such as Synology Photos. These are convenient, but they're built as an add-on to the storage box, and in our experience they offer fewer tools than dedicated apps like Immich. They also only run on that brand's hardware, so your library goes with it if you ever switch.
What Top Drawer does differently
- AI that understands videos, not just photos. Long videos are understood scene by scene, so a search can take you to the exact moment.
- Captions and posting built in. The AI drafts captions, and you can post straight to your favourite platforms from the app. You decide what leaves the drawer.
- Encrypted at rest, with one-tap lock. Your library is encrypted with a key only you hold, and one tap locks everything on every device.
- Nightstand, for your most personal content. Other apps can hide photos behind a PIN. Nightstand is built for what you keep in there: AI that understands what’s really in the scene and doesn’t blush, captions with the right kind of heat, and posting to the places that content belongs, all behind its own key and lock. No other photo library we know of does this.
- Save from anywhere. Send photos and videos you find online straight to your inbox, and the AI files them in the right place.
- Everything stays in the house. The library and the AI both run on your own hardware. Nothing is uploaded to us or to an AI company.
- Every device, eventually. Native apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac come first, with Android, Windows and Linux in development.
Which should you choose?
Choose Top Drawer if you want the most complete private library: AI that understands your photos and videos and finds the exact moment, captions and posting built in, Nightstand for your most personal content, and one-tap lock. It's designed to take no more effort to run than the other self-hosted apps. Join the list and we'll email you once, when it's ready.
Choose Immich or PhotoPrism if you mainly want storage, backup and search for your photos, and you're happy to run server software yourself.
Choose Ente if end-to-end encryption matters most to you and you're comfortable with your library living on someone else's servers, under their rules, or with running their server yourself.
Coming from Google or Apple? Start with a private alternative to the big photo clouds.