OwnPhotos 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 | OwnPhotos | Piwigo |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 22 · At risk | 87 · Excellent |
| Category | Photo Management | Photo Management |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Language | Jupyter Notebook | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,758 | ★ 3,862 |
| First released | 2017 | 2002 |
| Replaces | Google Photos | Flickr, Google Photos |
What are OwnPhotos and Piwigo?
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
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
OwnPhotos vs Piwigo: key differences
OwnPhotos is written in Jupyter Notebook, while Piwigo is built with PHP. Licensing differs — MIT for OwnPhotos versus GPL-2.0 for Piwigo. Piwigo is the lighter option, starting around 512 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for OwnPhotos. Piwigo is the more established project (first released 2002), while OwnPhotos arrived in 2017.
Why pick each one
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
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 OwnPhotos or Piwigo better?
Piwigo is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider OwnPhotos if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are OwnPhotos and Piwigo free and open-source?
Yes. OwnPhotos is licensed under MIT and Piwigo under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run OwnPhotos and Piwigo with Docker?
OwnPhotos: yes. Piwigo: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, OwnPhotos or Piwigo?
Piwigo has the smaller minimum footprint at 512 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for OwnPhotos. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.