Ditch the Cloud: 5 Best Self-Hosted Photo and Video Gallery Options

Ditch the Cloud: 5 Best Self-Hosted Photo and Video Gallery Options

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Tired of storing your photos in the cloud only to have the cloud provider change your contract and ask you to pray they don’t change it anymore? Have you looked at all the photos on your hard drive or phone and thought, “Well, I have them. I just want easier ways to share and store them?” Self-hosting is for you.

Here are five self-hosted photo storage options to consider.

SEE: The definition of open source can be controversial, with some commercial models claiming the title.

NextCloud

This open-source project offers a mobile app and an automatic upload feature. You can also use it as a host for other photo management applications. Additionally, it can host non-photos such as documents, calendars, and contacts.

Nextcloud offers collaboration and file hosting tools.
Nextcloud offers collaboration and file hosting tools. Screenshot: Megan Crouse/TechRepublic

Photoprism

This open source application uses Google TensorFlow to automatically classify images. It extracts location data, detects duplicates, and can sync with Nextcloud.

Photoprism offers smartphone-like smart search on an independent platform.
Photoprism offers smartphone-like smart search on an independent platform. Screenshot: Megan Crouse/TechRepublic

Piwigo

This open source photo gallery software offers geolookup and multi-user support. Its album features are great, including batch management, album hierarchy and more. It also has a mobile app.

Piwigo is suitable for organizations and includes management tools and accounts for individuals.
Piwigo is suitable for organizations and includes management tools and accounts for individuals. Screenshot: Megan Crouse/TechRepublic

Lychees

This open source photo gallery app has excellent features for editing albums and metadata. But of course the gallery features make it do the best job. Just be aware that it has no machine learning for automatic detection.

Find Lychee on GitHub and run it on a private server.
Find Lychee on GitHub and run it on a private server. Screenshot: Megan Crouse/TechRepublic

FreePhotos

Like most tools with the Libre name, LibrePhotos is a fork. In this case, it’s a fork of OwnPhotos, which allows for object detection, face training, and event-based album generation. LibrePhotos also integrates with NextCloud.

LibrePhotos can be installed using Docker.
LibrePhotos can be installed using Docker. Screenshot: Megan Crouse/TechRepublic

Self-service photo storage provides albums, sharing, and automatic facial recognition—all the tools you get from a cloud provider that suddenly wants to charge you while still collecting your data for ad targeting. If you have enough space on your computer or server, you can instantly self-host your own photos.

What is a self-service photo and video gallery?

A custom photo and video gallery allows users to store and share media on their own hardware or virtual server. It provides an alternative to smartphone photography apps or social media.

What are the system requirements for hosting my photo gallery?

Different self-service photo galleries have different requirements. Most services will have documentation available.

For example, Nextcloud offers cloud hosting as part of some of its plans. Photo hosting generally doesn’t require a lot of RAM — PhotoPrism can be installed on a Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB of RAM. LibrePhotos requires 10GB of hard disk space to run through Docker Compose.

Megan Crouse updated this article.

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