It seemed like Immich came out of nowhere, but suddenly all my colleagues appear to be using it. I'm not as into self-hosting as some of them, so perhaps that's why I'm surprised, but the more I look into it, the more obvious it seems that this photo management solution is turning into a sleeper hit. The question is: why? At first glance Immich doesn't seem to be all that, but there's a reason (or five) people are dropping their cloud subscriptions in favor of managing their own digital photo collections. It actually feels like Google Photos Imitation, flattery, and all that jazz I did a roundup of the services we've left for open-source alternatives not too long ago, and Immich was high on the list not only because of how polished it is, but how boldly it emulates the look, feel, and operation of Google Photos. Now, Google Photos is probably the most widely used photo management app in the world, given that its on virtually every Android device, so it makes sense to make the transition as easy as possible. It also helps that Google Photos is well-designed and easy to use, and that's always worth copying. Immich is basically a Trojan horse helping you slip into self-hosting without feeling like you're giving up polished, commercial software. In other words, and I mean this in the kindest way, it doesn't feel like typical open-source software. It solves the hardest problem: automatic phone backups Trust is what matters most While I personally love the AI search aspect of Google Photos, and it helps me find the right images in the tens of thousands of photos I've taken since the service launched, that's never been the main value proposition. It's that any photos I take with my phone get automatically