I've been making a set of local- and files-first iOS apps for myself - Photo Gallery, Music and Contacts.
I use Linux on my computer and an iPhone and wasn't happy having to use a cloud to sync my data between my devices. Syncthing/Synctrain + my apps allow me to keep everything on my private network, without ever touching a server or having to self-host something like Immich.
I've stepped back from self-hosting after realizing that 90% of my use case was to keep calendar/contacts/files/photos/passwords in sync between my laptop and phone.
I'm now experimenting with a files-based approach, using syncthing for the p2p syncing, and it works really well.
No VPS or home server to setup and maintain, no security worries, no database migrations, no extra backups, no tinkering with Caddy configs.
I use Linux on my computer and an iPhone and wasn't happy having to use a cloud to sync my data between my devices. Syncthing/Synctrain + my apps allow me to keep everything on my private network, without ever touching a server or having to self-host something like Immich.
https://j23n.com/public/posts/2026/localios