Pho icon
Pho icon

Pho

Serverless photo backup and gallery app syncing directly to your own NAS or cloud storage over standard protocols with no server lock-in, preserving originals, AES-256 encryption, open folder structure, incremental uploads, and open source sync engine.

Pho screenshot 1
Pho screenshot 2
+5
Pho screenshot 3

Cost / License

  • Freemium (Subscription)
  • Open Source (GPL-3.0)

Platforms

  • Android
  • iPhone
  • iPad
Pho alternatives  
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Features

Properties

  1.  Privacy focused
  2.  Lightweight

Features

  1.  No Tracking
  2.  Dark Mode
  3.  Works Offline
  4.  Built-in viewer
  5.  No registration required
  6.  Ad-free
  7.  Cloud Sync
  8.  Automatic Backup
  9.  Photo Gallery
  10.  Photo Synchronization
  11.  WebDAV Support

 Tags

Pho News & Activities

Highlights All activities

Recent activities

  • Google Photos icon
    fregie added Pho as alternative to Google Photos
  • Immich icon
    fregie added Pho as alternative to Immich
  • Apple Photos icon
    fregie added Pho as alternative to Apple Photos
  • Danilo_Venom updated Pho
  • fregie added Pho
  • PhotoSync icon
    fregie added Pho as alternative to PhotoSync and SyncGallery + 2 similar activities

Pho information

  • Developed by

    CN flagfregie

  • Licensing

    Open Source (GPL-3.0) and Freemium product.

  • Pricing

    Subscription ranging between $3 and $25 per month + free version with limited functionality.

  • Alternatives

    6 alternatives listed

  • Badge

    Get an embeddable badge for Pho

  • Supported Languages

    • English
    • Chinese

AlternativeTo Categories

Backup & Sync, Network & Admin, Photos & Graphics

GitHub repository

  •  1,133 Stars
  •  88 Forks
  •  51 Open Issues
  •   Updated  
View on GitHub

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Pho was added to AlternativeTo by fregie on and this page was last updated . Pho is sometimes referred to as pho.tools. 
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Official Links

AppStores & Other Links

Download from Google Play Store
Download from iPhone App Store

What is Pho?

Pho is a serverless photo backup and gallery app that syncs your photos directly to your own NAS or cloud storage over SMB, WebDAV, NFS, or Baidu Netdisk. There is no middleman server and no database — your photos live on storage you control, organized in a transparent YYYY/MM/DD folder structure you can browse with any file manager, even without Pho.

Browse local and cloud photos together in one unified timeline, with full-screen pinch-to-zoom, EXIF details, Live Photo playback, and native support for HEIC, HEVC, RAW (DNG), and video. Originals are always preserved at full quality — no compression, no transcoding, no stripped EXIF.

Automatic background sync runs while your device is charging, with an optional Wi-Fi-only mode and silent local notifications. After the first backup, incremental sync uploads only new photos.

Privacy-focused users can enable AES-256 encryption: photos are encrypted before upload and decrypted on download, stored with a .aes suffix, and encrypted videos support streaming playback without full-file downloads.

Pho is free to download with a basic sync tier. Pro unlocks AES encryption, parallel multi-threaded uploads, custom sync filters, camera-only albums, custom theme colors, and a storage-reclaiming tool — available as a subscription or a one-time lifetime purchase. The core sync engine is open source.