imaginary 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?
imaginary
Self-hosted microservice for on-demand image processing
VS
Piwigo
Open-source photo gallery for the web
| Feature | imaginary | Piwigo |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Photo Management | Photo Management |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Language | Go | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, source | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 6,076 | ★ 3,836 |
| First released | 2015 | 2002 |
| Replaces | Cloudinary, imgix | Flickr, Google Photos |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is imaginary or Piwigo better?
Neither is universally better. imaginary has the larger community, while Piwigo is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are imaginary and Piwigo free and open-source?
Yes. imaginary is licensed under MIT and Piwigo under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run imaginary and Piwigo with Docker?
imaginary: yes. Piwigo: yes.