Coppermine vs fgallery
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted photo management options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Coppermine | fgallery |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 57 · Fair | 9 · At risk |
| Status | Actively maintained | Archived |
| Category | Photo Management | Photo Management |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | PHP | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 73 | ★ 248 |
| First released | 2002 | 2013 |
| Replaces | Flickr | Flickr, Google Photos |
What are Coppermine and fgallery?
Coppermine
Coppermine is a multi-purpose, fully featured web picture gallery that supports user uploads, ratings, and comments. It is one of the longest-running open-source gallery scripts and runs on a standard PHP and MySQL stack.
- User uploads and ratings
- Comments and moderation
- Theming support
- Batch import
fgallery
fgallery is a static photo gallery generator that produces a minimalist, self-contained HTML gallery from a folder of images. The generated gallery is fully static, privacy-respecting, and can be hosted on any web server.
- Minimalist static galleries
- Self-contained output
- Mobile friendly
- No tracking
Coppermine vs fgallery: key differences
The biggest difference is maintenance: fgallery's repository is archived and no longer developed, while Coppermine is actively maintained. Coppermine is written in PHP, while fgallery is built with JavaScript. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0 for Coppermine versus MIT for fgallery. Fgallery is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Coppermine. Coppermine is the more established project (first released 2002), while fgallery arrived in 2013. Fgallery has the considerably larger community, at 248 GitHub stars versus 73.
Why pick each one
Choose Coppermine if…
- Very mature
- Community moderation tools
Watch out for
- Dated interface
- Aging codebase
Choose fgallery if…
- Clean simple design
- Privacy respecting
Watch out for
- Command-line only
- Minimal features
Frequently asked questions
Is Coppermine or fgallery better?
fgallery is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider fgallery if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Coppermine and fgallery free and open-source?
Yes. Coppermine is licensed under GPL-3.0 and fgallery under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Coppermine and fgallery with Docker?
Coppermine: check the project docs for container support. fgallery: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Coppermine or fgallery?
fgallery has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Coppermine. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.