Photo Gallery

12 Best Free and Open Source Web Photo Gallery Solutions

There are many web services that allow users to upload pictures to a hosting site. The image host stores the images on its servers, and shows the individual different types of code to allow others to view that image. Popular examples include Flickr, Instagram, Imgur, Photobucket, SmugMug and Snapfish.

Most of these solutions provide free storage space, with more features available if you are willing to pay for a premium account. However, there are problems with these solutions. Leaving aside privacy and ownership issues, these services typically do not provide good integration with other platforms. There is a simple alternative which gives you more control and flexibility – self-hosted open source gallery software.

Anyone with a large photo collection will know that cataloging and finding a specific picture can be very time consuming. The purpose of this article is to identify Linux software that helps to host, organize, describe and share your collection by using a number of different techniques including tagging and albums. Good software makes the task of deciding which photos to keep and which to delete less time consuming.

To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 12 of the most useful open source web photo gallery software. Hopefully, there will be something of interest here for anyone who wants to host and share their photos.

We give our strongest recommendation to PhotoPrism, Piwigo, Immich, Photoview, and LibrePhotos but each of the solutions has something to offer. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion.

Ratings chart for best free and open source web-based gallery tools

Let’s explore the 12 photo gallery solutions at hand. Click the links in the table below to learn more about each solution. For some of them, we’ve written a detailed review.

Web Photo Gallery
PhotoPrismAI-powered photos app for the decentralized web
PiwigoAn excellent solution for hosting and sharing your photos
ImmichSimple to use backup tool for self-hosted photos and videos
PhotoviewSimple and user-friendly photo gallery that’s made for photographers
LibrePhotosSelf-hosted photo management service
CoppermineFeature-rich and integrated, web picture gallery script
ZenphotoMature, standalone Content Management System
MediaGoblinDecentralized Web platform for hosting and sharing digital media
LycheeAttractive and easy-to-use photo management system
HomeGalleryFeaturing tagging, mobile-friendly, and AI powered image discovery
LutimLet’s Upload That Image
fgalleryStatic photo gallery generator with no frills that has a stylish, minimalist look

This article has been revamped in line with our recent announcement.

Best Free and Open Source SoftwareRead our complete collection of recommended free and open source software. Our curated compilation covers all categories of software.

The software collection forms part of our series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. There are hundreds of in-depth reviews, open source alternatives to proprietary software from large corporations like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk.

There are also fun things to try, hardware, free programming books and tutorials, and much more.
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Eric
Eric
5 years ago

I can recommend PicApport. It’s really missing in the List.

Missy
Missy
5 years ago
Reply to  Eric

Can you give me an honest assessment of PicApport capabilities? Looking for a server based photo organizational tool for the municipality I work for. Thanks!

Lukas
Lukas
5 years ago
Reply to  Missy

Picapport is very very simple to set up, which is great, no messing around with setting up a webserver first. It works pretty good in places, but not so good in others. Spaces in Directory names can be a problem (the folder “Cat” and “Cat Babies” will be displayed within each other. Some Characters in Tags dont work properly [] for example, png files only work via a (very easy to install) plugin, this however creates hidden .jpg files for every png file which can be anoying if you use your photo directories with other programms aswell.

Appart from that im very happy with it. I have tried a lot of solutions, none is free of such little Problems. Picapport won it for me because its easy to install and i can work around its weak spots.

Kavi
Kavi
2 years ago

This is really an amazing guide, thanks for sharing.

Seb
Seb
9 months ago

Would Photoprism qualify to be in this list ? I just read your review about it.

DocDrydenn
DocDrydenn
8 months ago

Any reason why Immich was left out of the comparison? MIT License, 12.8K Stars with updates/features being rolling out sometimes as often as twice a week. I know it’s “newer”, but come on…

Dansky
Dansky
8 months ago

It’s easy to fake GitHub stars. And I know a few open source projects that have been caught out doing this.

Neil
Neil
8 months ago
Reply to  Dansky

Yeah, there are ‘services’ that charge around $70 for 1000 GitHub stars.

JTY
JTY
8 months ago
Reply to  Neil

There are even fake GitHub account generator tools hosted in GitHub repositories. The irony :>

JELaBarre
JELaBarre
2 months ago

The problem here is these are all oriented for running from a web server. I’m looking for a utility that can generate local albums that can then be copied to CD. Booh used to be my go-to for this, but that has gone missing.