Cloudreve vs imaginary
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Cloudreve
File management and sharing system, supports multiple storage
VS
imaginary
Self-hosted microservice for on-demand image processing
| Feature | Cloudreve | imaginary |
|---|---|---|
| Category | File Sync & Storage | Photo Management |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 28,485 | ★ 6,076 |
| First released | 2026 | 2015 |
| Replaces | — | Cloudinary, imgix |
Why pick each one
Choose Cloudreve if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 28.5k GitHub stars
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is Cloudreve or imaginary better?
Neither is universally better. Cloudreve has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Cloudreve and imaginary free and open-source?
Yes. Cloudreve is licensed under GPL-3.0 and imaginary under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cloudreve and imaginary with Docker?
Cloudreve: yes. imaginary: yes.