Coppermine vs Piwigo
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted photo management options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Piwigo
Open-source photo gallery for the web
| Feature | Coppermine | Piwigo |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 57 · Fair | 87 · Excellent |
| Category | Photo Management | Photo Management |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Language | PHP | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 73 | ★ 3,862 |
| First released | 2002 | 2002 |
| Replaces | Flickr | Flickr, Google Photos |
What are Coppermine and Piwigo?
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
Piwigo
Piwigo is a mature open-source photo gallery application for organizing, sharing, and showcasing photo collections. It targets photographers and organizations managing large galleries. It is deployed via Docker or a PHP stack.
- Large gallery management
- Plugin and theme ecosystem
- Granular access control
- Upload from desktop and mobile
Coppermine vs Piwigo: key differences
Both projects are written in PHP. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0 for Coppermine versus GPL-2.0 for Piwigo. Coppermine is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Piwigo. Piwigo has the considerably larger community, at 3,862 GitHub stars versus 73. Piwigo lists first-class Docker deployment; Coppermine does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Coppermine if…
- Very mature
- Community moderation tools
Watch out for
- Dated interface
- Aging codebase
Choose Piwigo if…
- Very mature and stable
- Extensible
- Good for big collections
Watch out for
- Interface feels classic
- No modern AI search
Frequently asked questions
Is Coppermine or Piwigo better?
Piwigo is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Coppermine if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Coppermine and Piwigo free and open-source?
Yes. Coppermine is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Piwigo under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Coppermine and Piwigo with Docker?
Coppermine: check the project docs for container support. Piwigo: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Coppermine or Piwigo?
Coppermine has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Piwigo. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.