FamilySearch

Best Self Hosted Alternatives to FamilySearch

A curated collection of the 2 best self hosted alternatives to FamilySearch.

FamilySearch is a free online genealogy platform operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It offers searchable historical records, a collaborative family tree, research tools, and digitized document and photo archives.

Alternatives List

#1
webtrees

webtrees

Web-based genealogy software for publishing and collaboratively editing family trees, with GEDCOM import, media support, and granular privacy controls.

webtrees screenshot

webtrees is a web application for building, publishing, and collaboratively maintaining genealogy (family tree) data online. It imports standard GEDCOM files and provides tools to browse, edit, and share research with fine-grained control over what different users can see.

Key Features

  • Import and manage one or more family trees from GEDCOM files
  • Collaborative editing with multiple user accounts and role-based permissions
  • Flexible privacy controls to restrict sensitive individuals, families, and facts
  • Media support for photos and document images linked to people and events
  • Configurable modules, menus, charts, reports, and themes
  • Internationalization with many languages and surname conventions

Use Cases

  • Publish a private or public family history site for relatives
  • Collaborate with distributed family members on shared genealogical research
  • Migrate or consolidate research from desktop genealogy apps using GEDCOM

Limitations and Considerations

  • Some collation and name-sorting behavior can vary by database; MySQL is often preferred for best locale-aware sorting
  • Importing very large GEDCOM files can be time-consuming and depends on server memory and execution limits

webtrees is a mature option for individuals and groups who want a standards-based genealogy platform with strong collaboration and privacy features. It is well-suited for long-term stewardship of family history data while remaining compatible with common genealogy workflows via GEDCOM.

696stars
335forks
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#2
GeneWeb

GeneWeb

Open-source genealogy software with a web interface, multilingual support, GEDCOM import/export, relationship calculations, per-person access control and templating.

GeneWeb screenshot

GeneWeb is a genealogy application that provides a lightweight web server and a browser-based UI to manage, view and share genealogical databases. It is implemented in OCaml and designed to handle large numbers of individuals, multilingual content and interactive relationship calculations.

Key Features

  • Web-based interface served by an embedded lightweight HTTP server for daemon or CGI deployments
  • Native OCaml core with JavaScript/HTML/CSS frontend components
  • Import and export support for GEDCOM and GeneWeb GW formats, preserving incompatible data in notes
  • Multilingual UI and wikitext-style notes with internal links, images and templates
  • Efficient relationship and consanguinity calculators and family graph navigation
  • Per-database accounts and per-person access filtering, with configurable privacy rules
  • Statistics and timeline views (anniversaries, age pyramids, recent events)
  • gwsetup and administrative tooling for configuration and base management; can run via container or standard build

Use Cases

  • Host and share family trees with controlled access and per-person privacy settings
  • Maintain large public or research genealogical databases with multilingual content and relationship analysis
  • Import legacy GEDCOM data, edit with rich notes and export cleaned GW or GEDCOM datasets for archival

Limitations and Considerations

  • Uses a custom GW data format rather than a mainstream RDBMS, which can limit direct integration with external database tools
  • Primary implementation in OCaml may require specific build tooling and familiarity for custom development or packaging

GeneWeb is suited for genealogists and research projects that need a scalable, privacy-aware web front end and robust relationship analysis. It prioritizes compact, efficient data handling and multilingual publishing over modern single-page UI frameworks.

368stars
113forks
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Why choose an open source alternative?

  • •Data ownership: Keep your data on your own servers
  • •No vendor lock-in: Freedom to switch or modify at any time
  • •Cost savings: Reduce or eliminate subscription fees
  • •Transparency: Audit the code and know exactly what's running