Photos will automatically categorize pictures by person, place, thing, etc... I never bother making folders or albums because I can just search by date or place or "black cat" or whatever. If the system can't figure it out on its own you can easily multi-select a bunch of pictures and add keywords, which can then be searched. If you really don't want to see the whole unfiltered camera roll ever you can just stay away from the library entry. If you are in "My Albums", for instance, and quit the app, when you come back you'll still be there.

I guess I don't really understand what you're looking for.

I purchased a basic Synology NAS. Works great, automatically backs up photos on ios, has tags, folders, map view and facial recognition.

Google photos

I have 5 family members using Synology Photos (on a 4-bay Synology NAS) and it’s a great solution for us.

I don’t see myself going back to a cloud-based solution - this one is easy for me and secure.

I’ve got SHR running on my storage, and daily offsite backup to another family member’s house (protects against house fire etc for loss of 20yr+ of photos and videos).

Once you offload from your phone, you can pare down the photos remaining on the phone to whatever you want to be left.

Nextcloud on my NAS and Google Photos

Try iMazing, I’ve had luck with 47k photos https://imazing.com/iphone-file-transfer

Use PhotoSync to transfer your iOS photos to a nas, desktop, or cloud service of your choice. Done.