Self-Hosted Photos & Media

Immich, Jellyfin, the *arr stack, Audiobookshelf — replace Google Photos / Plex / Spotify.

The killer apps that justify a homelab. Most of these have polished mobile / TV / car apps.

Photos (Google Photos / iCloud Photos alternative)

★ Immich — Google Photos clone; mobile apps for iOS / Android with auto-upload; ML-based search; face recognition. The default in 2026.
- https://github.com/immich-app/immich
PhotoPrism — older alternative; gorgeous UI; less polished mobile experience than Immich.
- https://github.com/photoprism/photoprism
LibrePhotos — older OSS; less active.
- https://github.com/LibrePhotos/librephotos
Nextcloud Memories — Nextcloud app; nice if you're already on Nextcloud.
- https://github.com/pulsejet/memories

★ Jellyfin — open-source media server; Plex alternative. Mobile / TV / browser apps. Default in 2026.
- https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin
Plex — closed source; very polished apps; freemium. Most-installed because of TV apps.
Emby — middle-ground; closed core, free tier, paid Premiere.

★ Sonarr — TV show management.
- https://github.com/Sonarr/Sonarr
★ Radarr — movie management.
- https://github.com/Radarr/Radarr
★ Prowlarr — indexer manager (talks to Sonarr / Radarr / Lidarr).
- https://github.com/Prowlarr/Prowlarr
Lidarr — music management.
- https://github.com/Lidarr/Lidarr
Readarr — books / audiobooks.
- https://github.com/Readarr/Readarr
Bazarr — subtitles for Sonarr / Radarr.
- https://github.com/morpheus65535/bazarr
Overseerr / Jellyseerr — request UI for users.
- https://github.com/sct/overseerr
- https://github.com/Fallenbagel/jellyseerr
Tautulli — Plex / Jellyfin viewing analytics.
- https://github.com/Tautulli/Tautulli

★ Navidrome — Subsonic-compatible music server; iOS / Android clients via the Subsonic ecosystem (Substreamer / Symfonium / Tempo).
- https://github.com/navidrome/navidrome
Funkwhale — federated music server.
- https://github.com/funkwhale/funkwhale
Airsonic-Advanced — older Subsonic fork.
Lyrion Music Server (formerly Logitech Media Server) — Squeezebox ecosystem.

★ Audiobookshelf — audiobooks + podcasts; great mobile apps.
- https://github.com/advplyr/audiobookshelf
★ Komga — comics / manga server.
- https://github.com/gotson/komga
Kavita — alternative; comics + ebooks + manga.
- https://github.com/Kareadita/Kavita
Calibre-web — ebook server on top of a Calibre library.
- https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web

Jellyfin has Live TV / DVR if you have an HDHomeRun or similar tuner.
TVHeadend — backend for live TV; pairs with Jellyfin.
- https://github.com/tvheadend/tvheadend
NextPVR / Channels DVR — alternatives.

Plex Meta Manager / Kometa — automate library curation.
- https://github.com/Kometa-Team/Kometa
Recyclarr — sync TRaSH-Guides settings to Sonarr / Radarr automatically.
- https://github.com/recyclarr/recyclarr

★ All-in-one Compose stacks. LinuxServer.io, TRaSH-Guides — community-curated configs.
*Single user / username for the arr stack — keep things simple.
Storage layout — /data/media/{movies,tv,music,...} consistent across containers.
Off-host backups for metadata DBs — your Jellyfin / Immich DBs are valuable; back them up.
GPU passthrough for transcoding — Jellyfin + Intel iGPU is amazing on a mini-PC.