My wallet opines that cloud storage subscriptions are the worst digital offenders. They are a perpetual, nickel-and-dime hole for the privilege of storing my data. After paying Google or Apple for storage to hold onto my ever-growing photo library, I started looking for an escape. It came with the NAS purchase that also lifted several other burdens. My first NAS from Synology got me very close to the subscription-free future I'd envisioned, and Synology Photos was the obvious solution for image management staring me in the face.
It installed easily, had a mobile app, offered access through QuickConnect, and backed up my phone. But that wore out quickly because I like to tinker, and remain in control of my setup. This, and a few advanced features I'd been drooling over, is why PhotoPrism struck me as the ideal replacement. The absolute best part? I could spin up a read-only instance in Docker to test it without it "helpfully" rearranging my entire photo archive going back decades.
After a few weeks of trying the new tool out in read-only mode, I made the full switch. Here’s exactly why.
PhotoPrism respects my folder structure
AI involves itself only as required
This was the first and most glaring deal-breaker. I’ve spent years meticulously organizing my photos. My archive has a clear, logical structure: YYYY/MM - Event Name/, with subfolders for RAW, JPEGs, and Edits. I wanted a tool I could point at the parent directory, index it, and then just view without messing up the hierarchy. Synology Photos insisted on importing everything into its own library structure, managed in its way, inside its "Personal Space" or "Shared Space" system. I caved during the initial setup, but one of my manually maintained offsite and offline backups still uses my familiar folder structure, and I'm glad I held on to it. Synology's system may still be acceptable for someone starting from scratch with just a phone camera roll.
PhotoPrism, on the other hand, mentions your Originals folder during setup. I pointed it at my master /photos directory, set it to "read-only" for safety during my test, and commenced indexing. It built a database around my organization, and my files weren't moved, renamed, or otherwise disturbed. My meticulous folder structure is still browsable right from the Folders tab. This alone was almost enough to make me switch.
Uploading without limits on my own NAS
This is atrocious, Synology
Sometimes limits for transfers on a NAS are included to avoid kneecapping performance, and Synology isn't different either. Let's say I was willing to play by Synology's rules and import my photos en-masse. The web UI has a hard drag-and-drop limit of 5,000 files. My archive has over 100,000 files spanning hundreds of gigabytes, and I'm not moving 20+ batches so tediously. To make matters worse, even when I copy a folder over, Synology Photos often just flattens the structure, dumping all the images into one pile from that day, completely ignoring the sub-folders I created. It gets on my nerves.
PhotoPrism, being a FOSS tool designed for tinkerers and running in Docker, just laughs at these restrictions. It defaults to a 1GB per-transaction upload limit, but because it's my software on my hardware, I can change the limit by modifying the environment variable called PHOTOPRISM_UPLOAD_LIMIT in Docker. Defined in MB, this limit defaults to 1,000, and you can up the value suitably or just set it to -1 and remove it. Now I can upload a 30GB folder of RAW files from a wedding shoot in one go, with the folder structure preserved.
However, advanced users with high-end camera sensors may run into PhotoPrism's resolution limits. Since it isn't free-for-all, you'll need to become a sponsor to generate certain high-res preview images. However, it doesn't impact my workflow.
Powerful search that goes beyond metadata
Filter by every aspect of the image
Looking up an image I clicked is always challenging. Google Photos automates face detection and tagging, but beyond location, it is very difficult to look up naturescapes, for instance. Synology Photos' search is a direct, and frankly weaker, clone of Google Photos also dependent on the same metadata-based search you'll find in other apps. I'll give it credit for nailing facial recognition and basic filters, but PhotoPrism seems built by people who actually care about photography.
In addition to searching for an image by the EXIF data such as the camera and I used, or the ISO and focal length, I can look up colors. Sunsets will generally be orange, shots from a day at the beach will be blue and golden, and naturescapes will be green. Moreover, I know my bird photography is usually shot on the Sony A7 at 300mm focal length or longer, and PhotoPrism makes lookup so much easier after the fact.
If you're coming from Google Photos and its .json files for metadata, PhotoPrism can handle those too. It intelligently finds the matching .json for an image, reads the real metadata, and applies it to the photo in its database. This is a migration lifesaver. And did I mention I don't struggle with extensions for viewing my RAW photos anymore?
Phone backups aren't an all-or-nothing affair
iPhone users should get choices too
Synology Photos nailed the convenience of automated backups to my NAS, so I didn't miss Google Photos in the first few weeks, especially since I use Android devices. However, backing up images from an iPhone was a hellscape. The mobile app is a blunt instrument that just backs up… everything. It gives you no option to select which folders or albums on your phone you want to back up, instead rolling my camera roll, 2,000 screenshots, and memes from WhatsApp into a single digital junk drawer.
PhotoPrism is a scalpel in comparison. It doesn't try to build its own proprietary, limited backup tool. Instead, it supports WebDAV, a time-tested, open standard. So, I use a powerful and linked service in PhotoSync to handle my mobile backups. And that app gives me the granular control I demand. It backs up albums to independent folders as commanded.
This keeps my NAS library clean and organized from the start, all because PhotoPrism chose to use open standards instead of a locked-down, proprietary one.
Control beats convenience
Look, I'm not going to say Synology Photos is useless. If you just bought your first NAS and want a simple, two-click, free replacement for Google Photos, it's decent. Being locked into Synology's ecosystem hurts in the long term once you start to miss these essential features. In switching to PhotoPrism, I have gained more than just a boatload of powerful features. Because it runs in a Docker container, my entire photo library and management system is portable. If Synology makes a change to its operating system that I hate, who cares? My photo management isn't tied to it. If I decide to move to an Unraid or TrueNAS server tomorrow, my entire PhotoPrism setup—database, settings, previews, and all—comes right along with me.
PhotoPrism, even on its free tier, is for the enthusiast, the tinkerer, and the photographer who wants their software to work for them, not the other way around.