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Most people on Android use Google Photos for saving and reliving their memories. On iOS most use Apple Photos.
Comparing those two services I believe that Apple Photos is the better choice, as it can be End-to-End-Encrypted when Advanced Data Protection is turned on. This is a huge advantage that Apple Photos has over Google Photos. Advanced Data Protection isn't turned on by default, so it's a manual step everyone should do who values their privacy. Google Photos is not End-to-End-Encrypted. Google itself can see your pictures and analyzes them. This comes in handy for you as a user because it has really well working face recognition, editing tools etc., but it's a nightmare for privacy.
For me personally photos are the thing that I believe should be protected the most from a privacy perspective. They are telling so much about you and the people around you. Not only does EXIF data in images include information about where you took a photo, the camera you took it with and so on, but pictures include many other information that can be analyzed by AI models too. There is a nice website made by ente.io that shows what for example Google can see from your photos.
So to protect ourselves in other areas we often have alternatives:
But which alternatives do we have for photos? We have Ente.io and Immich. Both are Open Source. Ente is End-to-End-Encrypted and also suitable for people who are not running their own servers or have friends who can do it for them. Immich currently has more features.
What do I use?
Since my work consists out of having to know how servers are run, I host my own Immich-Server for myself, my family and my friends. Simply because Immich already supports video streaming and allows for files larger than 4 GB, which Ente currently does not (it is planned though!). For someone who doesn't know how to run this and who isn't experienced in maintaining a good backup infrastructure in case of hardware failures etc. I'd recommend Ente.io.
About Ente
Ente basically works like Google Photos. It's easy. You create an account with their app and make sure to not forget your password etc. Then you enable backups and just sync your photos and videos. Note that in both cases (with Immich and Ente) on iOS you have to keep the app open to be able to sync. This is due to restrictions by Apple. You can also enable machine learning in the app's settings. This enables neat features like face recognition and so on. Since this runs on your own device Ente can't see the content of your pictures. They have paid plans depending on how much storage you need. If you're an IT admin you can also self host Ente for yourself and friends. You therefore get both options.
About Immich
I love Immich but they don't offer the software as a service. They "only" build the tool for you to self host. They do an awesome job with that though, because Immich itself is just very good. It comes with nearly everything Google Photos comes (basically only missing the advanced editing features). It has face recognition, object recognition through search, a map with all your pictures displayed on, video streaming, support for large files and much more. From a technical perspective Immich is not End-to-End-Encrypted but you can run it on your own hardware with full disk encryption. Therefore you don't have to trust a third party. The mobile apps for Android and iOS are very well made, too.
Their Websites
Immich: https://immich.app
Ente: https://ente.io
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