Ohhi vs Instagram
Ohhi is a European alternative to Instagram: same content & media use case, headquartered in Netherlands and governed by EU GDPR, while Instagram (Meta) is based in the United States.
By the EU Alternatives team Last updated
Share photos and videos with an invited circle only: chronological timeline, shared albums with roles, no ads, no algorithm, EU servers.
- Jurisdiction
- EU / EEA
- Primary privacy law
- EU GDPR
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- No
- Open source
- No
- Free tier
- Yes
Instagram is Meta's photo and video network, free to use and funded by advertising built on detailed behavioural profiling across Meta's properties. Reach for creators and businesses is set by a ranking system nobody outside the company can inspect. Meta Platforms is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.
- Jurisdiction
- US
- GDPR by default
- Requires DPA + TIA
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- Yes
Ohhi vs Instagram at a glance
| Ohhi | ||
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | Netherlands | US |
| Data jurisdiction | EU / EEA | US law applies |
| Primary privacy law | EU GDPR | Requires DPA + transfer assessment |
| US CLOUD Act exposure | No | Yes |
| Open source | No | — |
| Free tier | Yes | — |
| Best for | Teams that need content & media built for European data-protection requirements | Teams already invested in the Meta ecosystem |
Choose Ohhi if…
- You want a provider governed by a European privacy regime
- GDPR or public-sector data-protection requirements apply to you
- You want to start free and scale up later
- You'd rather back the European tech ecosystem
Stick with Instagram if…
- You depend on integrations only available in the Meta ecosystem
- Your organisation has no EU data-residency constraints
- Migration costs outweigh the jurisdiction benefits for now
About Ohhi
Ohhi is a private photo and video network for family and friends, where only the people you invite can see what you share. There are no followers, no public profiles and no recommendation algorithm: the timeline runs in order and shows your own circle, nothing else. Viewing and reacting stays free, so relatives can join without paying anything.
Photos go into folders and albums with per-person roles, from view-only through contributing to managing, and everyone comments and reacts in place. Trip folders lay a holiday out day by day and on a map, and optional face grouping runs on Ohhi's own servers rather than an external AI API.
Key benefits:
- Invite-only circles so no follower, stranger or ranking algorithm reaches your photos
- Albums with roles covering view-only, contributing and managing access per person
- Free to view and react so family can join without taking a subscription
- One plan for six accounts shared across parents, children and grandparents
- Opt-in face grouping processed in Ohhi's own environment, never an external AI API
- Trips on a map built from your own photo coordinates, place names resolved in house
- Native iOS and Android apps uploading straight from the phone, plus a browser library
Ohhi is run from Nijmegen in the Netherlands by Geraedts Holding B.V., under Dutch law and the GDPR. Photos and videos are stored with Hetzner in Germany and Finland, delivered through Bunny CDN in Slovenia and billed through Mollie in Amsterdam. The company commits in writing to no ads, no tracking cookies, no third-party analytics and no AI training on user content.
Paid plans run from €6 to €149 a year. Ohhi deliberately does not rebuild public pages, groups or Marketplace: it replaces the part of Facebook and Instagram most people actually use.
Why choose Ohhi over Instagram?
The decisive argument is data jurisdiction. Instagram is headquartered in US, which means personal data processed through it can be subject to non-EU legal regimes: the US CLOUD Act, FISA 702, or similar laws depending on the provider. After the 2020 Schrems II ruling, EU organisations must carry out a transfer impact assessment for every such data flow.
Ohhi removes that overhead. As a Netherlands-based provider, it operates natively under GDPR, and data stays inside the EU/EEA by default. For regulated sectors such as health, public administration, and finance, that's not a nice-to-have but a requirement. For everyone else, it's concentration-risk insurance: you avoid depending on a single non-EU jurisdiction that can change the rules without warning.