imaginary vs Lychee
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?
imaginary
Self-hosted microservice for on-demand image processing
VS
Lychee
Self-hosted photo management made easy
| Feature | imaginary | Lychee |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Photo Management | Photo Management |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Go | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, source | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 6,076 | ★ 4,255 |
| First released | 2015 | 2012 |
| Replaces | Cloudinary, imgix | Google Photos, Flickr |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is imaginary or Lychee better?
Neither is universally better. imaginary has the larger community, while Lychee is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are imaginary and Lychee free and open-source?
Yes. imaginary is licensed under MIT and Lychee under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run imaginary and Lychee with Docker?
imaginary: yes. Lychee: yes.