HomeGallery 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 | HomeGallery | Piwigo |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 72 · Good | 87 · Excellent |
| Category | Photo Management | Photo Management |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Language | JavaScript | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,185 | ★ 3,862 |
| First released | 2020 | 2002 |
| Replaces | Google Photos | Flickr, Google Photos |
What are HomeGallery and Piwigo?
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
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
HomeGallery vs Piwigo: key differences
HomeGallery is written in JavaScript, while Piwigo is built with PHP. Licensing differs — MIT for HomeGallery versus GPL-2.0 for Piwigo. Piwigo is the lighter option, starting around 512 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for HomeGallery. Piwigo is the more established project (first released 2002), while HomeGallery arrived in 2020. Piwigo has the considerably larger community, at 3,862 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 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 HomeGallery or Piwigo better?
Piwigo is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider HomeGallery if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are HomeGallery and Piwigo free and open-source?
Yes. HomeGallery is licensed under MIT and Piwigo under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run HomeGallery and Piwigo with Docker?
HomeGallery: yes. Piwigo: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, HomeGallery or Piwigo?
Piwigo has the smaller minimum footprint at 512 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for HomeGallery. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.