ExifCleaner vs imaginary
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted photo management options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
ExifCleaner
Cross-platform tool to remove metadata from images
VS
imaginary
Self-hosted microservice for on-demand image processing
| Feature | ExifCleaner | imaginary |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Photo Management | Photo Management |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Perl | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | docker, binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,552 | ★ 6,076 |
| First released | 2019 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Online metadata removers | Cloudinary, imgix |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is ExifCleaner or imaginary better?
Neither is universally better. imaginary has the larger community, while ExifCleaner is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are ExifCleaner and imaginary free and open-source?
Yes. ExifCleaner is licensed under MIT and imaginary under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run ExifCleaner and imaginary with Docker?
ExifCleaner: check the project docs for container support. imaginary: yes.