exifr vs Piwigo

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?
FeatureexifrPiwigo
CategoryPhoto ManagementPhoto Management
LicenseMITGPL-2.0
LanguageJavaScriptPHP
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM64 MB512 MB
Deploymentbare-metal, sourcedocker, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 1,245★ 3,836
First released20192002
ReplacesCommercial metadata APIsFlickr, Google Photos

Why pick each one

Choose exifr if…

  • Comprehensive metadata support
  • Excellent performance
exifr details

Choose Piwigo if…

  • Very mature and stable
  • Extensible
  • Good for big collections
Piwigo details

Frequently asked questions

Is exifr or Piwigo better?

Neither is universally better. Piwigo has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are exifr and Piwigo free and open-source?

Yes. exifr is licensed under MIT and Piwigo under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run exifr and Piwigo with Docker?

exifr: check the project docs for container support. Piwigo: yes.

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