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Free and OpenSource Photo Libraries

homegrowntechie

Overview

In my quest to reduce my reliance upon proprietary software applications, I’ve begun to focus some more time in finding a good Google Photos or Apple Photos alternative. As began looking at the alternatives, I discovered that there were way more options that I had originally anticipated. Each alternative had a different feature set and I found it difficult to compare the different options. To solve this dilemma for myself (and hopefully for many others), I’m compiling a list of free and open source photo libraries that can be self-hosted or run locally without any need for cloud services.

Google/Apple Photos Alternatives

As of the writing of this post, my alternative comparison list looks like the following (Be sure to visit the github repository for the most up to date comparison.

Comparison

✅ = Feature exists in at least a limited fashion
🚧 = Feature may exist but may not be practical or officially released
❌ = Feature does not yet exist
#️⃣ = Subjective measure of feature quality (on scale of 0-10)
Tip: Hover over icons for missing/incomplete features for more information
Feature Damselfly Immich Librephotos Lychee Nextcloud Photos Photonix PiGallery2 Photoprism Photoview Piwigo
Github Stars ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Active Contributors 1 1 1 3 2 1 1 4 1 3
Source Language C# Dart Python PHP JavaScript Python TypeScript Go Typescript/Go PHP
License ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Demo ❌ ❌ ✅6️⃣* ✅4️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅9️⃣ ✅9️⃣ ✅9️⃣
Freeness ✅🔟 ✅🔟 ✅🔟 ✅🔟 ✅🔟 ✅🔟 ✅🔟 🚧7️⃣ ✅🔟 ✅🔟
Automatic Mobile Upload ❌ ✅7️⃣ ❌ ❌ ✅4️⃣ ❌ ❌ ✅6️⃣ ❌ ✅7️⃣
Web App ✅8️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅5️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅8️⃣
Mobile App ❌ ✅6️⃣ ✅6️⃣ ❌ ✅3️⃣ ✅4️⃣ ❌ 🚧 ✅6️⃣ ✅7️⃣
Desktop App ✅9️⃣ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌
LivePhotos Support ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅6️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ❌ ❌ ✅7️⃣ ❌ ❌
Video Support ❌ ✅8️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅6️⃣ ✅6️⃣ ❌ ✅8️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅4️⃣
Photo Map ✅8️⃣ ✅4️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ❌ ✅6️⃣ ✅9️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ❌
Photo Discovery ❌ ❌ ✅7️⃣ ❌ ✅3️⃣ ❌ ❌ ✅6️⃣ ❌ ✅1️⃣
Albums ❌ ✅8️⃣ ✅9️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅3️⃣ ✅5️⃣ ✅6️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅6️⃣ ✅8️⃣
Timeline ✅5️⃣ ✅9️⃣ ✅9️⃣ ❌ ✅5️⃣ ✅5️⃣ ✅5️⃣ ✅5️⃣ ✅9️⃣ ✅3️⃣
Photo Sharing ❌ ✅4️⃣ ✅9️⃣ ✅9️⃣ ✅5️⃣ ❌ ✅7️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅5️⃣
Photo Search ✅8️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅3️⃣ ✅3️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅5️⃣ ✅7️⃣
Docker Installation ✅8️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅6️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅6️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ❌
Object/Face Recognition ✅8️⃣ ✅6️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ❌ 🚧3️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ✅6️⃣ ✅9️⃣ ✅6️⃣ 🚧
Basic Editing ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌
EXIF Data ✅9️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅3️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ❌ ✅7️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅9️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅7️⃣
Multiple User Support ✅7️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅8️⃣ ❌ ✅7️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ✅7️⃣ ❌ ✅6️⃣ ✅8️⃣

* Librephotos Demo (User:demo Password:demo1234)

Note: This list is by no means comprehensive. For links to other photo library projects, see the Awesome Self-Hosted list.

Contributing

Please contribute additions and corrections by submitting a merge request to the github repository! When contributing, please add links to the source of the information. (i.e. link to an issue that indicates that a feature does not exist)

~ Don’t give away your photos to the largest data collection entities in the world! Your photos document your life better than any other kinds of data. Pictures are worth more than a thousand words to advertisers!

Bad Chrome Bad!

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Overview

I’ve never been a big fan of the Chrome browser because of it’s privacy implications, but I’ve also begrudgingly have had to use it on occasion for certain web services like some video chat services that don’t work on other browsers.

Situation

Today I was updating my wife’s macbook when I realized her machine was almost out of storage space (also probably why things were a bit sluggish). After looking at the storage settings it became apparent that over 23GB of storage was being used by none other than Google Chrome!

Bad Chrome, that’s un-called for! Looking at the .app bundle it became immediately apparent that Chrome was hoarding old versions of itself!

6 years of Chrome versions!

Wow, I’m not sure if I should be impressed that the same Chrome .app bundle survived 6 years on the mac or if I should be ashamed of myself for letting it survive that long 🤷‍♂️. Either way, it was time to clean house. After deleting all but the most recent version folder we reclaimed almost all of the storage originally claimed by Chrome.

Moral of the Story

The moral of the story is:

  • Chrome doesn’t clean up after itself like I would expect the #1 market share browser should.
  • I need to bit the bullet and ditch chrome for good one of these days 😝
  • It might be a good idea to remove .app bundles and re-download them on occasion to re-fresh things – who knows what else could have been floating around in there for the past 6 years!