[warrentr]

Has anyone found a good family friendly alternative? In particular I would really like to:

- Pay for the service (sustainable/trustworthy business model)

- Be able to very tightly control access to albums as I really don't want kid photos ending up on facebook or similar due to crazy aunt kathy (in google photos anyone with access can add anyone else and until recently there was no way to remove people)

- Ability to require a full/proper login for guests (no hard-to-guess urls as security)

- Confirmed and well-tested backup as a feature (sha1 of the backup matches my local, original copy, no stripping of the geo data!)

- Decent ios and android clients that can auto backup all photos on the device

[mceachen]

I'm working on one that's cross-platform, and, critically, self-hosted. The beta is available for free in exchange for your feedback.

It's an early product, but I'm pushing out new features monthly. Face detection and sharing are coming soon. https://photostructure.com/faq/why-photostructure/

FWIW, I recommend to my beta users that they personally store at least one of their backup copies. https://photostructure.com/faq/how-do-i-safely-store-files/

[warrentr]

Thanks for this! This sounds very interesting and your stated values align exactly with mine. I will check it out.

[SpyKiIIer]

Thanks for this, I am giving it a try on UnRAID at the moment.

[traskjd]

Sounds like you should just use Google Photos as it delivers most of that, with perhaps some improvements in 'backing up' outside of GP.

[jwr]

Well, perhaps apart from the fact that you are giving your photos to the company that makes money on targeted advertising and invests bajillions into AI technologies that learn from data.

Some of us are distinctly uncomfortable with that, especially given what has been done to Gmail — your mail is being fed to machines and used to build an advertising profile for you.

[three_seagrass]

>especially given what has been done to Gmail — your mail is being fed to machines and used to build an advertising profile for you.

Google has not mined emails in GMail for ad targeting for years now: https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite-gains-traction-in...

[jwr]

Ok, I stand corrected. Your mail WAS fed to machines and used to build an advertising profile for you.

I am constantly amazed and how people trust and defend corporations like Google, given what the incentives are. Why do you think Google provides services like GMail or Google Photos? Look at their revenue streams: it's an ad-tech company.

[three_seagrass]

>I am constantly amazed and how people trust and defend corporations like Google, given what the incentives are. Why do you think Google provides services like GMail or Google Photos?

I'm not sure how you got that out of my comment. I was stating a fact.

[wizzwizz4]

They have, however, let (apparently) arbitrary third-parties have access to said emails.

[joshuamorton]

Context?

This sounds nefarious, but for all we know you're talking about the people in the To line.

[wizzwizz4]

According to Google, it's “apps” – but this isn't Android apps; it's something that lets them directly fetch your emails from Google. I think it might be associated with OAuth, but despite their incredibly clear privacy policy I'm still not sure who exactly it is.

Don't worry; I'm fairly sure it doesn't happen unless you click through a pop-up.

[benbristow]

Amazon Photos is an alternative, free if you're a Prime member, but it's definitely not as polished as Google Photos. https://www.amazon.co.uk/photos/

Microsoft 365/OneDrive also offers a similar facility https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/onedrive/onlin...

I'm sticking with Google though as I don't use the 'unlimited' feature as it compresses your photographs, I just pay for extra Drive storage.

[andrewia]

I like Jottacloud. Quasi-unlimited storage (realistically up to 5 TB without issue) and a small but long-running company. Bonus points for BSD and Linux clients. https://www.jottacloud.com/en/pricing.html

[Dylan16807]

> realistically up to 5 TB without issue

What size of issue? Just the reduced upload speed, or something more? For most use cases you can probably ignore the throttling up to 10 or 15 TB.

[NikolaeVarius]

You could always pay for Google Photos

[ABeeSea]

Probably not the answer HN is looking for, but if you are in the Amazon Prime ecosystem, their access control using “groups” is really nifty. And you are technically paying for it (unlimited photo storage for Prime members + optional additional paid storage for video.)

[lelandbatey]

The only option that I know of is Dropbox. they're a classic player in this space with an acceptable track record (afaict). They have a nice app with auto-uploading of pictures, they dump them into a single folder with zero modification, preserving all metadata. Creating a photo album to share is as simple as putting all the jpegs into a folder and choosing "share" in their UI. You can create share links with the usual expected gradients of public accessibility, or you can share them with only specific authorized Dropbox users.

[jl6]

Minor nitpick: Dropbox doesn’t preserve the original filename (e.g. IMG_1234.JPG), instead changing it to a timestamp-based filename. It also doesn’t preserve Live Photos on iOS.

[lelandbatey]

You're correct, turns out Dropbox does rename the files and I'd forgotten.

It seems you're right about some quirks in their automatic photo saving system on iOS. Ive been using them with Android exclusively and had good support for auto saving pictures of all kinds.

OP, if you're on iOS Dropbox may not be for you.

[jl6]

I do use paid Dropbox on iOS and aside from the two defects I mentioned, it’s very reliable. Actually there’s a third: the Dropbox iOS app cannot reliably run in the background, so mass uploading is only possible when the phone is plugged in and the screen switched on with the app in the foreground (e.g. overnight) - but this is the fault of iOS.

Is there an alternative you’d recommend? I also use Dropbox for its cost-per-TB and Linux client.

[jlarocco]

It depends on what you mean by a few of those, but SmugMug is worth taking a look at.

[renchap]

You can have a try at https://www.notos.co/ for the privacy-minded sharing part. This is my main focus for the product. No mobile app (yet) or sync as backups and sharing require very different products and my focus is on the later for now.

[gowld]

> - Ability to require a full/proper login for guests (no hard-to-guess urls as security)

What is the difference between a hard to guess password and a hard-to-guess URL?

[gabagool]

Someone with a hard-to-guess URL could share the link with anyone else or just put it online, thereby eliminating any sense of security.

Of course, that "someone" could also just take a screenshot or copy the image.

[plater]

kDrive from Infomaniak is pretty good. It also has iOS and Android apps for automatic upload from your phone. It's a privacy focused company and have been around a long time.

They also offer file sharing with passwords and backup solutions.

https://www.infomaniak.com/en/kdrive

[pqoek]

> - Ability to require a full/proper login for guests (no hard-to-guess urls as security)

I believe all services provide that, because both have their upsides and downsides

[ru552]

I have all of this with amazon. Included with Amazon prime.

[jamesbr]

Check out Mylio. Happy user here. Doesn't quite tick all your boxes but it's been a great Aperture/Photos.app/iPhoto replacement for me.

[TheArcane]

If you want a self-hosted solution, check out Nextcloud. I use the version that works on my Rasbperry Pi (nextcloud-pi)

[adharmad]

www.smugmug.com

[amerkhalid]

I use Apple Photos with iCloud. Lightroom with 1TB plan might work too.

[treis]

We use Tinybeans and it checks all your boxes.

[janoc]

ipernity.com/ ?