Blackmagic Camera vs Ente Photos
Which is better in 2026? Five scores, side by side.
Blackmagic Camera is the better app overall, scoring 9.0 to 8.7. Blackmagic Camera wins on 3 of the 5 scores, Ente Photos on 2.
Filmmakers who want cinema-style manual control on a phone, for free
Privacy-minded families moving off Google Photos or iCloud
Score by score
The details
| Feature | Blackmagic Camera | Ente Photos |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Photo & Video | Photo & Video |
| Category rank | #2 of 10 | #7 of 10 |
| Developer | Blackmagic Design | Ente |
| Pricing | Free | Free + paid plans |
| Usable for free | Yes | Yes |
| iPhone & iPad | ✓ | ✓ |
| Android | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mac | — | ✓ |
| Windows | — | ✓ |
| Linux | — | ✓ |
| Web | — | ✓ |
Common questions
Is Blackmagic Camera better than Ente Photos?
Blackmagic Camera is the better app overall, scoring 9.0 to 8.7. Blackmagic Camera wins on 3 of the 5 scores, Ente Photos on 2.
Which is cheaper, Blackmagic Camera or Ente Photos?
Blackmagic Camera: Free with no in-app purchases; optional Blackmagic Cloud account is free to create. Ente Photos: 10 GB free; paid storage starts at $2.49 a month for 50 GB. On value for money, Blackmagic Camera scores higher.
Do Blackmagic Camera and Ente Photos work on the same devices?
Only Ente Photos runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, Web.
Which is more private, Blackmagic Camera or Ente Photos?
Ente Photos scores higher on privacy (9.8/10). Photos, metadata and search indexes are end-to-end encrypted. App Store label: no tracking, with only name, email and user ID linked to you. Ente says it collects no feature analytics.
Strengths and weaknesses
Blackmagic Camera
- Completely free with no ads or upsells
- Familiar controls if you use Blackmagic cinema cameras
- Pro recording formats cut straight into DaVinci Resolve
- Busy interface is hard going for casual shooters
- Android version only supports select phones
Blackmagic Camera turns a recent iPhone, iPad or supported Android phone into something close to a cinema camera. You get manual control of shutter angle, ISO, white balance and focus, pro formats including ProRes RAW on supported iPhones, live streaming, and Blackmagic Cloud sync for sharing footage with an editor. It costs nothing. The catch is a dense interface built for people who already know their camera settings.
Full Blackmagic Camera review
Ente Photos
- Encrypted so only you can see your photos
- Smart search runs on your own device
- Apps for every phone, computer and the web
- Pricier than mainstream photo clouds
- Big libraries can be slow to sync at first
- Less built-in than iCloud Photos on an iPhone
Ente Photos is a Google Photos alternative that can't see your pictures. Everything is end-to-end encrypted, yet you still get face recognition, natural-language search and Memories, all worked out on your device. Share albums, add up to five family members to your plan, and set legacy contacts. The code is open source and independently audited. It costs a little more than mainstream clouds, and very large libraries can be slow to sync at first.
Full Ente Photos review