Trove vs FamilyAlbum: Unlimited Storage or Actual Delivery?
Short answer
FamilyAlbum's free tier is the most generous in this category and we are not going to pretend otherwise: unlimited photos, unlimited storage, permanently. The catch is what happens after the upload. Storage is a solved problem; attention is not. FamilyAlbum is a place relatives have to open, and the arc is always the same — everyone installs it in the first excited month, and by the sixth the only person still looking is you. Trove is also free and also unlimited, and then it does the part that decides whether any of this mattered: every Sunday it emails the week's best photos, laid out, with the milestones and a note about what happened, to a family who install nothing. Same price. One of them arrives.
FamilyAlbum, previously called mitene, is the most-recommended free option in this category and deservedly so. Its free tier is not a trial or a teaser: unlimited photos, unlimited videos, unlimited storage, permanently. That is a genuinely hard offer to beat, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
So the interesting question is not which app is cheaper. Both are free. The question is what each one is actually built to do.
At a glance
| Trove | FamilyAlbum | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Unlimited photos, children, recipients | Unlimited photos and storage |
| Free video limit | No per-video cap | 2 minutes per video |
| Paid plan | $4.99/mo or $39.99/yr | $5.99/mo or $59/yr (Pro $109/yr) |
| Works without an app for relatives | ||
| How family sees photos | Emailed weekly newsletter | They open the app |
| Curation | AI picks and lays out the best | Chronological feed |
| Free prints | Book credit on Premium | 11 free prints/month on paid |
| Smart search | ||
| Milestones | First steps, words, tooth, birthdays, custom | |
| Automatic face grouping | ||
| 'This time last year' flashbacks | ||
| Reactions and comments | ||
| Contributor and viewer roles | Admin, contributor, viewer, newsletter | Members and viewers |
| Share links with expiry and view caps |
Where FamilyAlbum is genuinely better
Raw storage. If you want somewhere to put fifteen years of photos and videos without ever thinking about a quota, FamilyAlbum is the strongest free offer available. Nothing else in the category matches it.
Free monthly prints. Paid plans include eleven free photo prints a month, which over a year is a meaningful amount of physical photography for the money.
Maturity. It has been around a long time, has a very large user base, and its apps are polished on both iOS and Android. Trove is newer.
One free-tier caveat worth knowing
FamilyAlbum's free plan caps each video at two minutes. That is fine for clips, but it will cut off a school concert or a first-steps video that runs long. Check this before you commit if video matters to you.
Where Trove is genuinely better
FamilyAlbum solves storage. It does not solve attention.
Unlimited storage is worth exactly as much as the number of people who look at what you stored. And the pattern in every app-based family album is the same: everyone installs it in the first excited month, then opens it less, then stops. The grandparent who wanted the photos most is often the one least likely to remember to open an app.
Trove pushes instead of waiting. Every Sunday it emails a curated newsletter — the best photos of the week, laid out properly, with a short written summary — to everyone on your list. Recipients install nothing and create no account. If they can read email, they are set up.
- No app requirement for recipients, so the least technical relative is not quietly excluded.
- Unlimited newsletter recipients on the free plan.
- AI curation means no weekly editing chore — the thing you would eventually stop doing.
- No per-video length cap on the free plan.
Trove also has a free tier covering unlimited photos, children and recipients, so this is free-versus-free rather than free-versus-paid. On top of that it does things FamilyAlbum does not: automatic face grouping so you can pull up every photo of one child instantly, "this time last year" resurfacing, and no two-minute cap on video. The honest summary is that FamilyAlbum wins on being a bigger, older box — and Trove wins on everything that happens after the photos are in it.
The short version
- Pick Trove ifyou want the photos to reach people without them installing anything. Free, delivered weekly.
- Pick FamilyAlbum ifyou mainly want unlimited free storage and your family will genuinely open an app.
- Use both ifyou want FamilyAlbum as the archive and Trove as the distribution. Both free plans, so this costs nothing — and if you only keep one, keep the one your family actually sees.
Is FamilyAlbum really free?+
Yes. The free plan includes unlimited photo and video uploads with unlimited storage, indefinitely. The main free-tier limit is that each video is capped at two minutes. Premium is $5.99/month or $59/year and Premium Pro is $10.99/month or $109/year, which add prints and extra features rather than unlocking basic use.
Do grandparents need to install FamilyAlbum?+
Yes, to see the album properly they need the app and an account. This is the core difference from Trove, whose weekly newsletter is an ordinary email that works on any device with no installation.
Can I use both FamilyAlbum and Trove?+
Yes, and some families do exactly that — FamilyAlbum as the unlimited archive, Trove as the thing that actually gets photos in front of relatives each week. Both have free plans, so running both costs nothing.
Which has better search?+
Both have smart photo search that handles finding people and events without manual tagging. This is not a meaningful point of difference between them in normal use.
Storage is solved. Attention is not.
Trove emails your family a beautiful, curated photo newsletter every Sunday. Unlimited recipients, no app for them, free forever.
Get Trove — FreePricing and features were checked on August 17, 2026. Competitors change their plans — if you spot something out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
