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Home/Categories/Databases & Storage/Piwigo
icon of Piwigo

Piwigo

Open source alternative to SmugMug, Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan and Flickr

  • 3.9K stars
  • GPL-2.0
  • Active this week
  • Last commit 1 day ago

Last verified Oct 21, 2026

Piwigo is a self-hosted photo management platform for organizing and publishing large image libraries with album hierarchies, access controls, and a plugin ecosystem. GPL-2.0 licensed, runs on any PHP/MySQL server.

Visit websiteGitHub3.9K stars1-click deploy on Hostinger
image of Piwigo
TL;DR

Piwigo is a self-hosted web photo gallery for individuals, teams, and organizations that need to manage and publish photo libraries. It replaces hosted gallery products like SmugMug or Flickr Pro when ownership, server control, plugins, and long-term archive access matter more than managed hosting convenience.

Read the full breakdownHide the full breakdownWho it is for, how it works, trade-offs and the FAQ
who it's for

Who Piwigo is for#

Organizations publishing photo archives

Use Piwigo to run a branded gallery for events, collections, or internal photo libraries.

Skip if:

You only need cloud backup for personal camera rolls.

Teams needing self-hosted media access

Use Piwigo when photos should live on controlled infrastructure with web-based browsing.

Skip if:

You need a managed consumer app with automatic phone sync.

Community groups sharing albums

Use Piwigo to host albums under a community domain with long-term access.

Skip if:

A temporary shared album link is enough.

the problem

The problem it solves#

Photo libraries become hard to control when albums, permissions, and archives live inside a hosted consumer service. Organizations need galleries that can sit on their own domain, use their own storage, and match internal privacy expectations. They also need predictable access to media collections that may outlive a vendor plan or consumer account policy.

how Piwigo solves it

How it solves it#

Web photo gallery management

Piwigo is open source photo gallery software for managing photo libraries on the web.

Self-hosted PHP stack

Piwigo runs on a web server with PHP, MySQL or MariaDB, and ImageMagick or PHP GD for image handling.

NetInstall and manual setup paths

A NetInstall script and manual upload workflow give administrators two practical paths for installing Piwigo on web hosting.

GPL-2.0 licensing

Piwigo is released under GPL v2, giving organizations source access under copyleft terms.

strengths · trade-offs

Strengths and trade-offs#

Strengths

  • Good fit for long-lived archivesPiwigo helps organizations keep photo libraries under their own domain and server control instead of relying on consumer photo platforms.
  • Standard hosting requirementsPHP plus MySQL or MariaDB makes Piwigo practical for many shared hosting and VPS environments.
  • Community-driven projectPiwigo is widely driven by its community, with contribution guidance and public project resources.

Trade-offs

  • -You manage hosting and updatesSelf-hosting gives control, but administrators must handle server security, backups, upgrades, and image processing dependencies.
  • -Not a Lightroom-style editorPiwigo manages and publishes photo libraries. It is not a RAW editor or desktop editing workflow.
tech stack · detected from GitHub

What it's built on#

Languages
JavaScriptPHP
frequently asked

FAQ#

What is Piwigo?

Piwigo is open source web photo gallery software for managing and publishing photo libraries.

Can Piwigo be self-hosted?

Yes. Piwigo can run on a web server with PHP, a database, and image processing support.

Is Piwigo a photo editor?

No. Piwigo manages and publishes photo galleries. Use a RAW or image editor for detailed photo editing.

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Hostinger

Run Piwigo on your own server

Hostinger sets Piwigo up as a one-click app on a VPS.

Deploy on Hostinger

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