HomeGallery vs OwnPhotos
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted photo management options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | HomeGallery | OwnPhotos |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 72 · Good | 22 · At risk |
| Category | Photo Management | Photo Management |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | JavaScript | Jupyter Notebook |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 2,048 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,185 | ★ 2,758 |
| First released | 2020 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Google Photos | Google Photos |
What are HomeGallery and OwnPhotos?
HomeGallery
HomeGallery is a self-hosted web gallery that indexes photos and videos and offers fast browsing, similarity search, and face detection. It builds an offline-capable database from your existing media folders.
- Similarity search
- Face detection
- Video support
- Offline-capable database
OwnPhotos
OwnPhotos is a self-hosted alternative to Google Photos with automatic face recognition and object detection. It builds albums based on people, places, and things found in your library.
- Face recognition
- Object detection
- Auto-generated albums
- Self-hosted Google Photos clone
HomeGallery vs OwnPhotos: key differences
HomeGallery is written in JavaScript, while OwnPhotos is built with Jupyter Notebook. HomeGallery is the lighter option, starting around 1,024 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for OwnPhotos. OwnPhotos is the more established project (first released 2017), while HomeGallery arrived in 2020. OwnPhotos has the considerably larger community, at 2,758 GitHub stars versus 1,185.
Why pick each one
Choose HomeGallery if…
- Fast browsing
- Reads existing folders
Watch out for
- Indexing can be slow
- No upload from app
Choose OwnPhotos if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (2.8k GitHub stars)
- Written in Jupyter Notebook
Watch out for
- Project is now inactive
- Predecessor to LibrePhotos
Frequently asked questions
Is HomeGallery or OwnPhotos better?
Neither is universally better. OwnPhotos has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are HomeGallery and OwnPhotos free and open-source?
Yes. HomeGallery is licensed under MIT and OwnPhotos under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run HomeGallery and OwnPhotos with Docker?
HomeGallery: yes. OwnPhotos: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, HomeGallery or OwnPhotos?
HomeGallery has the smaller minimum footprint at 1,024 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for OwnPhotos. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.