Piwigo - Open source photo management software
Manage your photo library with Piwigo! Free and open source software to organize and share your photos and digital media on the web.
Categories:
Piwigo is open source photo management software that enables users to manage, organize, and share their photo libraries easily on the web, designed for organizations, teams, and individuals.
🚀 Overview
Piwigo is a mature, self-hosted photo gallery application that has been in development since 2002, providing a reliable way to handle thousands or even hundreds of thousands of photos without vendor lock-in.
It solves the problem of organizing, managing, and sharing large photo collections securely and efficiently, offering features like albums, tags, batch processing, and user permissions that scale for personal use or enterprise needs.
Built for photographers, educators, researchers, teams, and organizations who need a customizable digital asset management (DAM) solution on their own server.
The community built it to create a sustainable, open source alternative to proprietary cloud services, emphasizing longevity, extensibility via plugins, and full control over data.
✨ Key Features
- Upload and Import: Add photos via web interface, FTP, or desktop/mobile apps like digiKam, Lightroom; import metadata like IPTC for searchability.
- Organization Tools: Unlimited nested albums, tags, batch manager for bulk actions, calendar view by date, geolocation on maps (Google Maps or OpenStreetMap plugins).
- Sharing and Privacy: User/group permissions, comments, ratings, favorites, email notifications; virtual albums and privacy controls.
- Customization: 350+ plugins and themes for extensions like full-screen slideshows; Web API for integrations (e.g., WordPress, Lightroom).
- Optional: Upcoming features discussed in community forums and GitHub issues.
🛠 Tech Stack
- Frontend: PHP-generated HTML/CSS/JavaScript
- Backend: PHP 7.4+
- Database: MySQL 5+ or MariaDB
- Auth: Custom user/group management
- Hosting: Self-hosted on Apache or nginx; ImageMagick or GD for processing
👥 Who Is This For?
This project is useful for:
- Photographers who want to organize portfolios and share galleries
- Teams looking for collaborative photo management with permissions
- Organizations building scalable digital asset management without subscriptions
📸 Screenshots / Demo
- Live demo: https://piwigo.org/demo
- GitHub: https://github.com/Piwigo/Piwigo
🔥 Project Status
- 🟢 Actively building
Last updated: 2026-03-24
❓ FAQ
Is this project free?
Yes — Open Source under GPL v2. Self-host for free; hosted options like piwigo.com available.
Is the source code available?
Yes — https://github.com/Piwigo/Piwigo
Can I contribute?
Yes — report issues or submit PRs on GitHub, develop plugins/themes, participate in forums. See docs/CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.
📬 Contact & Links
- Website: https://piwigo.org
- GitHub: https://github.com/Piwigo/Piwigo
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/piwigo (archived)
- Forum: https://piwigo.org/forum/
- Contact form: https://piwigo.org/contact
Built with ❤️ and kept warm on WarmIndex.
Similar apps
Ente Photos: Store and share your photos with absolute privacy
ente.io
Ente Photos is the private, secure photo storage app with end-to-end encryption. Cross-platform, open source, and self-hostable. Start with 10GB free.
pixelfed
pixelfed.social
The original Pixelfed instance, operated by the main developer @dansup
Photopea | Online Photo Editor
photopea.com
Photopea Online Photo Editor lets you edit photos, apply effects, filters, add text, crop or resize pictures. Do Online Photo Editing in your browser for free!
Chevereto self-hosted - Image and Video Hosting Software
chevereto.com
Image and Video hosting software that allows you to create your own media hosting and sharing service in your own premises. It's your hosting and your rules, say goodbye to the closures and restrictions.