| ▲ | renegade-otter 5 hours ago |
| Immich is a Google Photos clone, and when they say "self-hosting", they mean SELF-HOSTING. You need to be a web dev or a sys admin to be able to wrangle that thing. Nightmare upgrades, tons of weird bugs related to syncing. If your solution to an issue is "just reset the Redis cache", this is when I am done. Immich solves the wrong problem. I just want the household to share photos - I don't want to host a Google Photos for others. |
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| ▲ | dsvf 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Not my experience hosting immich for close to two years now. There was only one "breaking change" a long time ago where you would have to manually change a docker image in the compose file, but since then things have been smooth for me. Immich may not be the pinnacle of all software development, but with the alternative being Google photos: - Uploading too many photos won't clog my email and vice versa - I'm not afraid of getting locked out of my photo account for unclear reasons and being unable to reach anyone to regain access - If I upload family photos from the beach, then my account won't get automatically flagged/disabled for whatever - Backups are trivially easy compared to Google takeout - The devs are reachable and responsive. Encounter a problem? You'll at least reach a human being instead of getting stranded with a useless non-support forum I would instead say that my (and my family's) photos are too important to me to pass their hosting on to a company known for its arbitrary decisions and then being an impenetrable labyrinth if there is an issue. So you do pay some price, but it is an illusion to think that the price of Google photos (be that in cash, your data or your effort) is much lower. Things that did break during this time:
- my hacky remote filesystem
- network connectivity of a too cheap server
but these were on me and my stinginess. |
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| ▲ | BatteryMountain 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Actually, I've setup a proxmox server last week that run a couple of self-hosted application. I've nextcloud running and it was fairly easy to setup. The next item on my list WAS Immich. I decided against trying to deploy it. The reason is simple: they are essentially forcing the use of Docker, which I won't touch at at all. Either a native proxmox container (which is just lxc) or a proper VM, but I keep those in reserve as they can be heavy. I'm not asking of them to create a native package for debian or a container image; a simple install script that bootstraps the application (checks & install itself and dependencies), bootstrap the database and basic config (data directory, url & ports, admin password) is more than enough. The same script should be use to update the application if possible, or provide an updater on the admin panel to update the application without manual steps or data migrations. Adguard Home does all of this perfectly in my opinion. I know Immich thinks they are making things "easier" to just dump everything into a docker container, but some of us wont touch it at all. Same reason I avoid any projects that heavily relies on nodejs/npm ecosystem. |
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| ▲ | thanzex 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I really don't understand this take.
A script that installs all required dependencies is fine if and only if you are dedicating a machine to immich. It probably requires some version of node, with possibly hidden dependencies on some python, it uses ffmpeg, so all related libraries and executables need to be there. You then have a couple separate DBs, all communicating together.
Let's not talk about updates! What if you're skipping versions? Now your "simple install script" becomes a fragile behemoth.
I would NOT consider this if it was non docker-native.
Plus, I don't have a server with enough resources for a lot of VMs, with all of their overhead and complications, just to have one per service.
Nowadays there are many ways to run a container not just the original docker.com software, and you can do that on pretty much any platform. Even Android now! | | |
| ▲ | dexterdog 32 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE/scripts?id=imm... These things are a proxmox home lab user's lifeline. My only complaint is that you have to change your default host shell to bash to run them. You only have to do that for the initial container creation though. | |
| ▲ | nullwarp 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I've never understood it either. I still deploy some things into their own respective manual deployments but for lots of things having a pre-made docker compose means I can throw it on my general app VM and it'll take 5 seconds to spin up and auto get HTTPS certs and DNS. Then I don't lose hours when I get two days into using something and realize it's not for me. Also have you read some of the setup instructions for some of these things? I'd be churning out 1000 lines of ansible crap. Either way since Proxmox 9.1 has added at least initial support for docker based containers the whole argument's out the window anyway. | | |
| ▲ | Xraider72 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Me neither. Docker is the platform agnostic way to deploy stuff and if I maintained software, it is ideal - i can ship my environment to your environment. Reproducing that yourself will take ages, or alternatively I also need to maintain a lot of complex scripts long-term that may break in weird ways. |
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| ▲ | suriya-ganesh 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | What are some arguments against using docker? I think it's the best of every world. Self contained, with an install script. Can bring up every dependent service needed all in one command. Even your example of "a simple script" has 5 different expectations. |
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| ▲ | ptero 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Immich solves the wrong problem. I just want the household to share photos That is a totally reasonable view. But others have different preferences. I, for example, do not want to share all my photos with Google, govvies and anyone else they leak them to. So I self host, back up and share my files with the family. I can always dump what I want to insta, etc. but it is my choice what to share, picture by picture, with default "off". And have no dark patterns trying to catch a finger accidentally hitting a "back up to cloud" for the full album. That, to me, is a big deal, worth dealing with occasional IT hassles for. Which is just a personal preference. |
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| ▲ | zenmac 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | >> Immich solves the wrong problem. I just want the household to share photos pixelfed may be what the parent want then. I don't like that it is PHP, but as long as they adhere to the ActPub protocal, we can roll our own in whatever flavor. | | |
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| ▲ | palata 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Because it doesn't solve your problem does not mean it solves the wrong problem. |
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| ▲ | sanex 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I've been waiting what feels like years for immich stable to be released for this reason. Luckily it finally happened about a month ago. I'm about to go through swapping out the main OS SSD on my server. If I'm able to see the immich backups after reinstalling TrueNAS I'm going to call it resilient enough for me. |
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| ▲ | a022311 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > You need to be a web dev or a sys admin to be able to wrangle that thing. I totally disagree. You do need a tiny bit of command line experience to install and update it (nothing more than using a text editor and running `docker compose up`), but that's really it. All administration happens from the web UI after that. I've been using Immich for at least 2 years and I've never had to manually do something other than an update. > Immich solves the wrong problem. I just want the household to share photos - I don't want to host a Google Photos for others. Honestly, I can't understand what exactly you're expecting. If Google Photos suits your needs for sharing photos with others, that's great! As for Immich, have you read how it started[0]? I think it's solved the problem amazingly well and it still stays true to its initial ambitions. [0]: https://v1.142.1.archive.immich.app/docs/overview/welcome |
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| ▲ | cassiogo 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Such a weird take. Of course "self hosting" means "self hosting". Sure it could be easier/safer to manage, everything can be better. Over the last couple of years hosting it I had a single issue with an upgrade but that was because I simply ignore the upgrade instructions and YOLOed the docker compose update. Again, is it perfect? No.
Would I expect a non tech savy user to manage their own instance? Again no. |
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| ▲ | hosteur 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| What? It is literally just start the container and forget. When upgrading it is change the version tag and restart the container. Upgrades are frequent but no hassle. I have been running this for half a year. It might have been more work earlier? My household is using this for our shared photos repository and everyone can use it. Even the kids. There is both direct web access and an iPhone app. |
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| ▲ | mynegation 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I run Immich for more than two years and there was an upgrade to 1.33 I think around spring 2024 that required special instructions on editing docker compose file because they changed the vector database. I think there was also a database migration same year when - if you did not update the version regularly - would need to run two step upgrade. They provided plenty of documentation always. A while ago sync was quite wonky but they improved that a lot lately. | |
| ▲ | candiddevmike 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Idk maintaining the PG vector extensions has been kind of a pain in the ass, at least from an automation perspective | | |
| ▲ | hosteur 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Huh? What are you maintaining? The PostgreSQL db and extensions are provided in the container image. You do not have to use your own external PostgreSQL. Of course, you may have reasons to do that. But then you also own the maintenance. I have never had to maintain any PG extensions. Whatever they put in the image, I just run. And so far it has just worked. Upgrades are frequent and nothing has broken on upgrade - yet at least | |
| ▲ | sva_ 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I never had to meddle with that |
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| ▲ | getlawgdon 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | There is an Android app, too. |
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| ▲ | ttoinou 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Couldnt Immich be used by a paid service provider to provide Immich google-free photo hosting ? |
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| ▲ | Trasmatta 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Every time I go the self hosting route, everything goes smoothly for awhile, and then decides to break 6 months down the line, and I have to waste a Saturday figuring it all out and upgrading things. Not what I want to do with my weekend, when I'm already doing software dev and maintenance for work. This happens even for super dependable, well written self hosted software. On the other hand, maybe AI can help remove some of that pain for me now. Just have Claude figure out what's wrong. (Until it decides to hallucinate something, and makes things worse) |
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| ▲ | gjsman-1000 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I was just telling a nonprofit the other day, who in the name of “self hosting” was running their business on a 73 plugin WordPress site: Move to Shopify and LearnWorlds. Integrate the two. Stop self hosting. (They’re not large enough to do it well; and it already caused them a two week outage.) |
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| ▲ | wobfan 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Move to Shopify and LearnWorlds. Having seen a lot of companies and startups doinge exactly that, more of less everyone regrets it. Either you end up with such a lot of traffic through these vendors that you'll regret it financially, or you want to change some specific part of your page or your purchase process, which Shopify doesn't let you change, and you'll end up needing to switch or be sad, or, as I regularly have to (because we don't get the resources and time to switch): try to manipulate the site through some weird hacky Javascript snippets that manipulate the DOM after it loaded. It's literally always the same. They get you running in no time, and in no time you're locked into their ecosystem: No customization if they don't want it; pricing won't scale and just randomly changes without any justification; if you do something they don't like they'll just shut you down. > Stop self hosting. Worst mantra of the century. Leading to huge dependencies, vendor lock ins, monopolies, price gauging. This is only a good idea for a prototype, and only as long as you'll not gonna run the prototype indefinitely but will eventually replace it. And maybe for one-person-companies who just want to get going and don't have resources for this. | | |
| ▲ | gjsman-1000 7 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Let me empathize but say, to put it bluntly, they do not have qualified IT Staff. They have 1 or 2 people who understand only basic web server stuff and nothing else. Thus the two week outage. Paying LearnWorlds + Shopify $30K a year, if it were even that extreme, is cheaper than an engineer and certainly cheaper than an outage over Giving Tuesday, as they found out the hard way. > It's literally always the same. They get you running in no time, and in no time you're locked into their ecosystem: No customization if they don't want it; pricing won't scale and just randomly changes without any justification; if you do something they don't like they'll just shut you down. You’re also locked into an ecosystem. It’s called Stripe or PayPal. Almost all of that applies anyway. > Leading to huge dependencies, vendor lock ins, monopolies, price gauging Have you analyzed how many dependencies are in your self hosted projects? What happens to them if maintainers retire? How long did it take your self hosted projects to resolve the 10/10 CVE in NextJS? And as for price gouging, if it’s cheaper than an engineer to properly support a self-hosted solution, I’ll still make that trade as even $80K for software is cheaper than $120K to support it. |
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| ▲ | skydhash 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If you need 73 plugins for wordpress, then Wordpress is a poor technology choice for your usecase. | |
| ▲ | em-bee 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | disagree. as the sister comment mentions, wordpress may have been the wrong choice, but self hosting is never wrong, especially for a non profit who may not have the resources to deal with a situation if a hosting service decides to shut them out. | | |
| ▲ | victorbjorklund 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Of course it’s sometimes the wrong choice. Not everyone should self-host their own DNS and other things if their needs are already meet. | |
| ▲ | crote 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If they don't have the resources to switch to a different hosting provider, why do you assume they will have the resources to fix things when their self-host solution shits the bed? | | |
| ▲ | wobfan 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | You're comparing apples to oranges. Switching the ecosystem from something like Shopify to some other shop software requires a lot of manual work, and some of the stuff won't even be transferable 1:1. Fixing some issue with your WordPress installation will require a person who can google and knows a little stuff about webservers, and maybe containers, and will usually go pretty fast, as WordPress is open source and runs almost half the internet, and almost every problem that will come up will have been solved in some StackOverflow thread or GitHub issue. Usually though, if you run WordPress and you're not doing a lot of hacky stuff, you will not encounter problems.
Vendors shutting you down, increasing their pricing, or shutting down vital features in their software, happens regularly though. And if it happens, shit hits the fan. |
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