photoprism
AI-Powered Photos App for the Decentralized Web ππβ¨
β 39,616 stars on GitHub Β· π΄ 2,254 forks Β· π License: other Β· π» Language: Go
What is photoprism?
If you want a private Google Photos-style library without handing your originals and metadata to a big cloud provider, PhotoPrism is one of the strongest self-hosted options. Its differentiator is not just storage: it brings AI tagging, face recognition, maps, search, RAW support, and a polished PWA into a package you can run on your own server.
Main components
- AI-assisted photo and video indexing with automatic labels, location awareness, and face recognition.
- Browser-based photo library with a responsive PWA that works well on desktop, tablet, and mobile.
- Powerful search filters across labels, people, places, dates, colors, resolution, quality, camera metadata, and file properties.
- Broad media support, including RAW images, Live Photos, common video formats, Exif/XMP metadata, and Google Photos exports.
- Places and maps view with privacy-preserving geocoding for browsing photos by location.
- WebDAV access so desktop file managers and compatible apps can open, edit, upload, or delete media directly.
- Docker-first deployment with multi-arch images for Linux, macOS, Windows, Raspberry Pi, and Apple Silicon.
Clear use cases
- Replace Google Photos or Apple Photos with a self-hosted private photo library for family archives.
- Centralize years of DSLR, mirrorless, phone, RAW, and exported Google Photos media into one searchable collection.
- Give household members a web app for browsing shared memories without exposing everything to a public cloud.
- Back up iOS and Android photos via compatible sync apps such as PhotoSync, then let PhotoPrism index them automatically.
- Run a home-lab media archive on a NAS, mini PC, or Raspberry Pi with browser access from your LAN or VPN.
- Use WebDAV to manage photo files from Windows Explorer, macOS Finder, or other desktop workflows.
The biggest strength is private, AI-powered discovery over your existing photo collection β PhotoPrism does more than display folders of images. It extracts metadata, generates labels, recognizes faces, groups places, and gives you search tools that feel closer to a commercial photo cloud than a basic gallery app. Compared with Google Photos or iCloud Photos, the tradeoff is that you manage the infrastructure yourself, but you keep control of the originals, metadata, indexing, and access model.
Best for home-lab users, photographers, privacy-focused families, and IT teams that want a self-hosted photo library with serious search and organization features instead of a simple image browser.
Topics: the project is tagged with popular topics:
- π·οΈ
ai - π·οΈ
golang - π·οΈ
google-photos - π·οΈ
machine-learning - π·οΈ
photography - π·οΈ
private-cloud - π·οΈ
self-hosted - π·οΈ
tensorflow
πΈ Screenshots
Quick install
The project supports Docker Compose:
git clone https://github.com/photoprism/photoprism.git
cd photoprism
docker compose up -d
Check the README in the repo for required env variables.
Minimum system requirements
| Component | Recommended |
|---|---|
| RAM | 4096 MB |
| CPU | 2 vCPU |
| Disk | 50 GB SSD |
| OS | Ubuntu 22.04 LTS / Debian 12 |
| Docker | 24.0+ |
β‘ Deploy fast on VSIS
Use the VSIS VPS Standard 4GB RAM / 2 vCPU / 50GB SSD (~150k/thΓ‘ng) plan from VSIS.NET β high-speed VN-based VPS, 24/7 support, ideal for running photoprism smoothly.
π― Benefits:
- One-command
docker compose up -ddeploy in 2 minutes - Dedicated IPv4, root access, unmetered domestic bandwidth
- Daily snapshot backup
- Free install assistance from the VSIS team
π See matching VPS plans at vsis.net
Resources
- π GitHub: photoprism/photoprism
- π Homepage: https://www.photoprism.app
- π Official docs: see README in the repo
- π¬ Community: GitHub Issues + Discussions
Article compiled from GitHub data on 05/05/2026. Star/fork counts may have changed β see live numbers via the GitHub link.