Should I self-host Google One?

What you lose

• Google's durability — your photos now live on disks you must 3-2-1 yourself, and 'backup of the backup' is on you
• Storage math: the Immich box + offsite copy costs more than $1.99/mo forever

What you're paying Google One for

• photo/video backup from phones
• ML search & faces
• shared albums
• 100GB of durable storage

Ranked alternatives

1. Immich

Your camera roll uploads itself to a server you own, and search still finds the dog on the beach.

immich-app/immich · ★ 110,159 · last commit 0d ago · AGPL-3.0

2. Nextcloud

Files, calendars and contacts on hardware you control, with the desktop and mobile clients pointed at it instead of somebody else's cloud.

nextcloud/server · ★ 36,384 · last commit 0d ago · AGPL-3.0

Hardware

Runs comfortably on a real VPS (2 GB+).

The tested compose file (our evidence, CI-booted)

# Immich — self-hosted photos with ML search (tested against Google One's job list; see the
# verdict for why $24/yr is not the reason to run it — ownership is).
# Images are ghcr.io-hosted: boot-verified by the CI runner. Upstream images ship healthchecks.
services:
  immich-server:
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:release
    container_name: immich-server
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      immich-db:
        condition: service_healthy
      immich-redis:
        condition: service_healthy
    environment: &immich-env
      DB_HOSTNAME: immich-db
      DB_USERNAME: immich
      DB_PASSWORD: immich
      DB_DATABASE_NAME: immich
      REDIS_HOSTNAME: immich-redis
    ports:
      - "2283:2283"
    volumes:
      - immich-upload:/data

  immich-machine-learning:
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-machine-learning:release
    container_name: immich-ml
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment: *immich-env
    volumes:
      - immich-ml-cache:/cache

  immich-redis:
    image: valkey/valkey:8-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "valkey-cli ping | grep PONG"]
      interval: 5s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 12

  immich-db:
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/postgres:16-vectorchord0.4.3
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: immich
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: immich
      POSTGRES_DB: immich
    volumes:
      - immich-pg:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U immich"]
      interval: 5s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 12

volumes:
  immich-upload:
  immich-ml-cache:
  immich-pg:

Want a guided install instead? caniselfhostit.com/google-one has AI-agent prompts that assume a bare machine — that's their half of the stool, and it's good.

Verification

# Timed setup log: Google One → immich

**Protocol:** v1 · **Verified by:** zernonia · **Date:** 2026-08-10
**Assistant:** claude-code · **Environment:** containerized runner, 2 vCPU class, Docker 29.3 / Compose v5.1

## Timeline

| Step | Time |
|---|---|
| Read upstream docs, draft compose with healthcheck | ~20 min |
| Boot in our verification environment blocked (ghcr.io-only images, model download, or the microVM's ipv6.disable=1 kernel) — **compose boot is certified by the CI runner** (`compose-check` gate, per-PR + weekly) | — |
| Endpoint-level workflow check (login/health/API serve) + re-run from clean volumes | ~20 min |
| **Total: ~60 min** | |

Boot and endpoint checks are machine-verified; `setup_min` is the wall-clock total for this
session including authoring, diagnosis and re-runs. Endpoint-level ≠ full human UI workflow —
dispute anything that doesn't reproduce (CONTRIBUTING.md).

## What broke

- Images are ghcr.io-hosted — this pair's compose boot is verified by the CI runner
- Immich requires its own pgvector-patched Postgres image; a vanilla postgres:16 will not do

## Verdict-relevant notes

- At the 2TB tier ($9.99/mo) with an existing NAS, the math flips hard toward YES — this verdict prices the 100GB tier most people actually pay.

Verdict history

• 2026-08-10: unscored → NOT_REALLY — Initial verdict: Immich is the best software in this index and $24/yr is the worst reason to run it. A photos server wants real RAM, real storage and real backups.