Breazzy vs Google Photos: a BYO-storage alternative for Android
Google Photos is a beautifully-built service that locks your photos inside Google. Breazzy is a free Android app that uploads photos directly to a Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, or Amazon S3 bucket you own. Pick Breazzy if you want lower cost and full ownership; pick Google Photos if face recognition, shared albums, and the polished viewer matter more.
Side-by-side
| Breazzy | Google Photos + Google One | |
|---|---|---|
| Where photos live | In a bucket you own (B2, R2, S3) | Google's servers |
| Cost per 100 GB / mo | ~$0.60 (B2) | $1.99 (Google One) |
| Cost per 2 TB / mo | ~$12 (B2) | $9.99 (Google One) |
| Original quality | Always | Optional, eats into 100 GB quota faster |
| Re-encoding | Never | "Storage saver" recompresses |
| Face grouping / AI tagging | No | Yes |
| Shared albums | Manual (share bucket links) | Built in |
| In-app editor | No | Yes, including Magic Editor |
| Search by content | No | Yes |
| Vendor lock-in | None (standard S3 bucket) | High (Google Takeout export) |
| Reads your photos for ads / AI training | No (we have no servers) | Subject to Google's privacy policy |
| Account required | None | Google account |
| iOS support | No | Yes |
Prices verified May 2026. Full pricing comparison →
Where Google Photos is better
Honest version: a lot of places, if you value features over ownership.
- Face grouping. Google's "People" view is genuinely useful, especially for families.
- Search by content. Typing "beach" or "passport" and getting actual matches is hard to give up once you have it.
- Shared albums. One link, family adds photos, everyone sees the timeline. Breazzy has no equivalent.
- Editor and effects. Magic Editor, Magic Eraser, color pop. None of that exists in Breazzy.
- The viewer itself. Smooth, fast, with a polished memories surface and good auto-organization.
- Cross-platform. Photos sync to iOS, web, and any browser. Breazzy is Android-only.
If any of that is important to you, Google Photos is the right product. Breazzy does not try to compete on these.
Where Breazzy is better
- You own the files. A standard S3 bucket with original-format JPEG, HEIC, MP4 files. Readable by any S3 client. Portable to any provider. No proprietary container.
- Cost at scale. Above 200 GB, the price gap widens. At 1 TB, Breazzy + B2 is $6/month; Google One 2 TB is $9.99/month and you cannot go smaller. Above 2 TB, Google One jumps to $19.99/month for 5 TB; B2 stays at $6/TB linear.
- No re-encoding, ever. Original quality is the only mode. Google Photos' "Storage saver" silently recompresses; even original quality decisions are subject to future policy changes.
- No account, no analytics. The app has no Breazzy backend. No data leaves the device except the photo bytes going to your bucket.
- Independent of one company's roadmap. Google has retired or restricted products before. Your bucket has no such risk.
Migrating from Google Photos
If you decide to switch, here is the realistic path:
- Use Google Takeout at
takeout.google.comto request a full export of Google Photos. Choose a tar.gz format and multiple smaller archives. - Download the archives to a desktop with enough disk.
- Upload to your bucket with rclone. A typical command (Backblaze B2):
rclone copy ./photos b2:your-bucket --transfers=8 --progress. - Install Breazzy and configure the same bucket. Breazzy detects existing objects by name and skips re-uploading them on the next sync.
- Verify a sample of files by downloading from the bucket and comparing checksums. Only then turn off Google Photos auto-backup.
Allow a weekend for the initial export and upload of a large library. The Google Takeout step can take hours and the archive download itself is the slowest part.
Who should pick which?
Pick Google Photos if you value face grouping, search, shared albums, the in-app editor, or cross-platform access with iOS. The product is genuinely good at those things, and $1.99/month for 100 GB is competitive if you do not mind the lock-in.
Pick Breazzy if you want the lowest possible storage bill, ownership of original files in a bucket you control, no account, no analytics, no risk of policy changes affecting your library, and you are comfortable with a backup-only tool that doesn't try to be a viewer.