Open-Source Self-Hosted Photo and Video Management Service immich Launches Paid Licenses: Personal License at $24.99

Immich, an open-source, self-hosted photo, and video management service operating under the AGPL license, essentially mirrors the functionalities of Google Photos and iCloud Photo Library. It allows users to set up their servers, such as internal network virtual machines, to back up and manage their photos and videos.

On May 1, 2024, the immich core team announced their partnership with the American software developer FUTO, which now provides full-time development costs to the immich team. Despite the partnership, the core team continues to retain autonomy over the project and keeps immich open-source under the AGPL license.

Immich had previously mentioned that it would introduce optional moderate payment methods to replace the existing donation plan, assuring that it would not limit the functionalities for free users. immich encourages users to pay for high-quality software to foster a healthy software culture, enabling developers to build exceptional applications.

Today, immich has launched its payment plan, featuring a personal license for $for$99.99. Purchasing the server license allows all users on that server to use the service for free.

Both the personal and server licenses are lifetime licenses, meaning they are not subscription-based, and users can enjoy the service for life without any additional fees. However, based on the development of other software, it's speculated that immich might eventually move to a subscription model and phase out the one-time purchase option.

License FAQ:

• Users can directly purchase and enter the license for activation starting from version v1.109.0.
• If you are an administrator and the only user, or if your server has fewer than 4 users, you can purchase a personal license.
• If your server has more than 4 users, purchasing a server license is more cost-effective as it licenses every user.
• Can you continue to use it without payment? Absolutely, without any restrictions.
• Will there be paid features? There will never be any paid features.

At least for now, whether users pay or not won't affect their use of immich . Considering the team has promised never to introduce paid features, the paid version may not differ significantly from the free version, making the paid option more of a sponsorship.

On the other hand, FUTO, with its decent reputation, also offers paid licenses for its software. Users can indicate they've paid with a click, but it's not an issue if they haven't; no further reminders will pop up.

Currently, there's ongoing discussion on GitHub about immich's payment plan. Some argue that the plan isn't appealing since it doesn't offer exclusive paid features, potentially deterring users from purchasing. Additionally, the lifetime license might discourage regular donors from contributing in the future, which doesn't bode well for immich's development.

Interested users can join the discussion here: https://github.com/immich-app/immich/discussions/11186