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
My alternative comparison list looks like the following (Be sure to visit the github repository for the most up to date comparison.
** This page was last updated on 2023-06-05
Free and OpenSource Photo Libraries
There are many great free and open-source alternatives to paid photo libraries. This project aims to track and compare the feature set between the many different options with a focus on ‘Gratis’ (free as in free beer) open source photo libraries. ‘Libre’ (free as in free speech) projects are also welcome, but will likely need to be submitted via a pull request since the time in testing each different project is significant.
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 (link to repository issue, etc)
Feature | Damselfly | HomeGallery | Immich | Librephotos | Lychee | Nextcloud Photos | Nextcloud Memories | Photonix | Photofield | PiGallery2 | Photoprism | Photoview | Piwigo |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Github Stars | |||||||||||||
Active Contributors | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 3 |
Source Language | C# | JavaScript / TypeScript | Dart / TypeScript | Python | PHP | JavaScript | PHP / Vue | Python | Go / Vue | TypeScript | Go | Typescript / Go | PHP |
License | |||||||||||||
Demo | |||||||||||||
Freeness | |||||||||||||
Automatic Mobile Upload | |||||||||||||
Web App | |||||||||||||
Android App | |||||||||||||
iOS App | |||||||||||||
Desktop App | |||||||||||||
LivePhotos Support | ️ | ||||||||||||
Video Support | |||||||||||||
Photo Map | |||||||||||||
Photo Discovery | |||||||||||||
Albums | |||||||||||||
Slideshow | |||||||||||||
Timeline | |||||||||||||
Photo Sharing | |||||||||||||
Photo Search | |||||||||||||
Duplicate Handling | |||||||||||||
User Defined Tags | ️ | ️ | |||||||||||
Docker Installation | |||||||||||||
Object/Face Recognition | |||||||||||||
Basic Editing | |||||||||||||
EXIF Data | |||||||||||||
Multiple User Support |
Note: This list is by no means comprehensive. For links to other photo library projects, see the Awesome Self-Hosted list and the Awesome Privacy list.
An HTML version of this comparison table is here: https://meichthys.github.io/foss_photo_libraries/
Contributing
Please contribute additions and corrections! 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!