Contents
- The short answer depends on where it runs
- A reproducible VPS estimate
- What this estimate does not include
- When a NAS can break even
- Storage and backup are different jobs
- What to choose
- Questions to check before moving photos
Self-hosting Immich can cost more or less than cloud storage depending on what “self-hosting” means. A rented VPS sized to run the service is a different proposition from an existing home server or a NAS you already own. The earlier version of this article treated one VPS quote as proof that self-hosting always costs more, mixed decimal terabytes with binary gibibytes, and compared region-specific plan prices as though they were universal. This revision makes the assumptions explicit and shows where the break-even calculation changes.
Bottom line: on the current US Google One pricing page, a basic 2 TB plan is listed at $9.99 per month. A DigitalOcean 8 GiB Droplet that meets Immich’s recommended memory and CPU figures starts at $48 per month, before adding enough block storage for a 2 TB library. That makes this particular rented-VPS setup substantially more expensive on monthly cash flow. It does not prove that owning a NAS is always more expensive or that every cloud provider costs the same.
The short answer depends on where it runs
Immich is self-hosted photo and video management software. Google One is paid storage shared by Google Photos, Drive, and Gmail; the current US page also bundles AI features into the 2 TB and 5 TB plans. They do not provide identical products, support, or maintenance responsibilities. The comparison below answers a narrower question: what is the monthly infrastructure bill if you rent one specific VPS configuration and add block storage, versus the displayed monthly price of a Google One plan?
Google’s plan page is regional, and its prices and plan names vary by country. The figures below are the US storefront values visible when checked on October 13, 2026—not a promise of the price in another country. Google’s page currently lists Basic 100 GB at $1.99/month, Google AI Plus 2 TB at $9.99/month, and Google AI Pro 5 TB at $19.99/month. Promotional and annual billing prices are excluded.
A reproducible VPS estimate
Immich currently recommends 8 GB RAM and four CPU cores; its minimum is 6 GB and two cores. DigitalOcean lists a bundled Droplet with 8 GiB RAM, four vCPUs, 160 GiB SSD, 5,000 GiB of transfer, and a $48 monthly price. Its Volume block storage is priced separately at $0.10 per GiB per month. We use those published inputs as one reproducible example, not as a market-wide average.
To avoid quietly equating unlike units, this estimate interprets Google’s “TB” capacity as decimal bytes, converts it to GiB for the VPS storage line, and subtracts the 160 GiB included with the Droplet. The formula is: $48 + max(0, required GiB − 160) × $0.10. The result is rounded to cents. A provider may allocate usable capacity differently, so check the actual checkout configuration before purchasing.
| Storage tier | Google US monthly plan | VPS + estimated block storage | VPS / plan ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 GB | $1.99 | $48.00 (included disk is enough) | about 24.1× |
| 2 TB | $9.99 | about $218.27 | about 21.9× |
| 5 TB | $19.99 | about $497.66 | about 24.9× |
This is an infrastructure-only arithmetic example. It explains why a rented server can look expensive beside a consumer storage plan; it is not a controlled service comparison. Google’s subscription price includes software and other plan features, while the VPS price buys infrastructure that the owner must configure and operate.
What this estimate does not include
- Backups: separate copies of photos and the Immich database cost extra. DigitalOcean lists Droplet backups and snapshots as additional products; another independent copy is still needed for a robust recovery plan.
- Restore testing: storage is only useful if the data can be recovered. Immich’s backup guide says its automatic database dumps contain metadata, not the photos and videos.
- Network egress: the example includes 5,000 GiB of transfer with the listed Droplet. Heavy remote viewing or sharing can make bandwidth policy relevant.
- Power, hardware, and replacement parts: a home NAS uses electricity and may need disks, a UPS, cooling, and eventual replacement.
- Time and availability: updates, account security, remote access, disk health, and outages become the operator’s responsibility. We did not assign a dollar value to someone’s time.
- Product differences: Google’s current plans include storage across multiple services and may include AI or family-sharing benefits; Immich’s feature set, ecosystem, and support model differ.
Immich’s official requirements say thumbnail and video-transcode generation can increase the library size by around 10–20% on average, and that the database should ideally use local SSD rather than a network share. Leave headroom for generated files, database growth, and backups instead of buying storage equal to today’s photo total.
When a NAS can break even
A fair ownership comparison uses total cost over the same period. For a home server, add purchase price, electricity, replacement drives, UPS or cooling if applicable, off-site backup, and any paid software or services. Divide one-time hardware cost across the years you realistically expect to use it, but do not assume a drive lasts forever. For cloud storage, multiply the current plan price by the period and account for possible price, tier, or promotional changes.
For example, at the listed US $9.99/month 2 TB plan, five years of unchanged monthly billing would total $599.40 before taxes, promotions, or future price changes. A NAS does not automatically “save” that amount: its full five-year cost must stay below the same figure, while still providing enough capacity and a separate backup. If you already own a suitable computer and drives, the incremental-cost calculation may favor Immich. If you must buy everything for one photo library, the result can be very different.
Do the same calculation for your own region. Use the plan price shown after signing into Google One in your country, your actual electricity rate and idle wattage, local drive prices, and the backup capacity you need. A price converted from another country using an exchange rate is not a local quote.
Storage and backup are different jobs
Immich’s backup and restore guide recommends a 3-2-1 strategy and says a backup should include both the database and asset files. The database stores file paths and metadata; a database dump by itself does not restore the photos. Immich also warns that database and file backups taken at different times can fall out of sync.
Immich can index an external library mounted from a filesystem, but that is not the same as an officially documented object-storage backend. The current external-library guide describes files made available through filesystem paths. Mounting an S3 bucket through a FUSE or gateway layer may be possible in some setups, but the official pages reviewed here do not establish it as a supported primary library design. It also does not replace an independent backup.
Do not treat synchronization as a backup without checking deletion behavior and recovery history. Before importing a large photo archive, keep the original copy untouched, create a second backup, and test restoring a small sample. The Immich backup documentation also cautions against changing files directly inside its managed library folders.
What to choose
| Your situation | A sensible starting point |
|---|---|
| You want low effort, family sharing, and someone else to maintain the service | Compare current cloud plans in your region; include which services share the storage and what happens when the plan ends. |
| You already own a suitable server or NAS and enjoy maintaining it | Trial Immich with a copied sample library, verify remote access and phone backup, then design and test independent backups. |
| You are considering a rented VPS only to save on a consumer storage subscription | Price the complete VM, storage, backups, transfer, and operations first. The example above suggests this path is unlikely to win on monthly infrastructure cost. |
| Your main goal is privacy or control rather than price | Compare threat models, encryption, account access, sharing, and the work needed to patch and protect a public server. Cost savings are not the only objective. |
Questions to check before moving photos
- What is the real library size today, and how much headroom will generated media and growth need?
- Are you comparing cloud storage with existing hardware, a new NAS, or a continuously rented VPS?
- Where are the second and third copies, and have you restored them successfully?
- Who will apply security updates, monitor disk health, and restore the service if the server fails?
- Does the local cloud plan’s actual price, family sharing, and feature bundle match the comparison you are making?
Sources and scope
Product requirements and price inputs were checked against official pages on October 13, 2026. Google pricing is the US storefront display; local plans and currency differ. DigitalOcean prices, backup products, and Immich requirements can change. No live Immich deployment, hardware power measurement, backup restore, or independent performance test was performed for this article.
- Immich: Requirements
- DigitalOcean: Droplet pricing
- DigitalOcean: Volume block-storage pricing
- Google One: Plans and pricing
- Immich: Backup and restore
- Immich: External libraries
- Immich: Storage templates
This is a scenario comparison, not personalized financial advice or a guarantee that one option will cost less for every household. Recheck regional checkout prices and your own backup, power, storage, and maintenance needs before migrating irreplaceable photos.