That's on my someday-list. Immich through its rootless-docker configuration impressed me, but I've still gotta get around to figuring how I can provide access to family members. (I mean, I could buy some suitable hardware that isn't my desktop, but prices these days, amirite?)
You don't really need a new homelab, a used mini pc will do just fine. For me Immich idles at 0.1% on consumer CPU consuming less than 3GB of RAM:
- server: 1.40GB
- postgresql: 600MB
- machine learning: 125MB
- valkey: 25MB
This is for around 200k photos and videos. Mounting the thumbnails folder on an SSD should also help with load speed
I run it on a Raspberry Pi 4B. External SSD for storage, runs like a champ.
I hosted Immich on an 8-year-old Intel NUC. It worked faster than Google Photos locally.
Immich is not heavy. I bought an old mini pc from a second hand government office supplies website and it runs all my self hosted apps perfect with tons of room to spare.
I think the main thing is storage speed matters which is why a mini pc with an ssd runs circles around a raspberry pi running off a microsd card.