Best Self Hosted Alternatives to Format

Immich is an open-source photo and video management platform that provides web and mobile clients, background processing, and searchable metadata. It focuses on efficient ingestion, indexing, and playback of large personal or small-team media libraries while supporting S3-compatible storage backends.

Key Features

• Web and mobile clients (web UI + native Flutter mobile apps) for browsing, backup, and playback
• Background job pipeline for thumbnails, transcoding, metadata extraction, and duplicate detection
• Face detection, face clustering, and visual/object search capabilities (embeddings-based search)
• Search by metadata, EXIF/location, objects, and faces; global map browsing of geotagged assets
• Support for S3-compatible storage backends and local filesystem storage abstractions
• Multi-user accounts, sharing, albums, and access controls with API and SDK support
• Queueing and worker architecture for scalable processing (Redis-backed queues) and database migrations
• Container-first deployment with Docker and orchestration-friendly configuration

Use Cases

• Automated mobile backup and centralized management of personal photo/video collections across devices
• Small teams or families sharing and organizing media with searchable tags, faces, and map-based browsing
• Photographers and hobbyists who need a private catalog with metadata search, RAW/HEIC support, and transcoding

Limitations and Considerations

• Machine-learning features (face detection, embedding generation, CLIP/object search) can be CPU- and memory-intensive; large libraries may benefit from dedicated workers or GPU resources
• Some features rely on database capabilities and indexes that may require specific PostgreSQL versions or extensions and careful migration planning
• Native dependencies used for image/video processing and transpilation (e.g., FFmpeg and native image libraries) can increase build/installation complexity on some platforms

Immich provides a full-featured alternative for private media management with strong indexing and mobile-first backup. It is maintained as an open-source project with an active community and a focus on performant ingestion, search, and sharing for photo and video libraries.

Lychee is a free, open-source photo management system that runs on your own server. It lets you upload, organize, browse, and share photos and albums from a fast, app-like web interface.

Key Features

• Photo and album management (create albums, move, rename, describe, delete)
• Fast browsing and full-screen viewing with keyboard navigation
• Search, tags, and “star/important” marking for organization
• Share photos/albums publicly and optionally protect albums with passwords
• Metadata support including EXIF and IPTC display
• Multiple import options (local upload, server-side import, and URL-based import)

Use Cases

• Personal or family photo library with full control over storage and access
• Photographer portfolio delivery via shareable albums
• Small team photo repository for events and documentation

Lychee is a solid choice for users who want an attractive, straightforward photo gallery and management workflow without relying on third-party cloud photo services. It combines practical organization tools with simple sharing controls in a clean web UI.

Piwigo is an open-source web application for managing, organizing and sharing large photo collections. It provides album hierarchies, user and permission management, extensible plugins and themes, and tools for batch processing and metadata handling.

Key Features

• Scales to large libraries with on-demand multiple-size image generation and cache management
• Albums hierarchy with unlimited depth; images can belong to multiple albums
• Batch manager for bulk operations (tags, album assignment, authors, geolocation)
• Role/group-based permissions, individual user management and activity/history tracking
• Extensible via hundreds of plugins and themes (gallery, slideshow, metadata, maps, etc.)
• Web API (HTTP/JSON) for integrations (upload, search, thumbnails, third-party tools)
• Mobile apps and upload paths (web upload, FTP, desktop apps, mobile clients)
• Support for image metadata (EXIF/IPTC), geolocation, and various image libraries (GD/ImageMagick)

Use Cases

• Internal image library for organizations requiring per-user access controls and versioned galleries
• Photographer portfolios and client-proofing portals with private albums and batch workflows
• Media cataloging and digital-asset workflows that need metadata import/export and API integration

Limitations and Considerations

• Requires a PHP-enabled web host and a MySQL/MariaDB database; recent Piwigo releases expect modern PHP (8.x)
• Some optional features require extra tools (exiftool for advanced metadata, ffmpeg for video posters) or server tuning for very large installations
• Plugin compatibility can vary between major Piwigo versions; migrations may require testing

Piwigo is a mature, community-driven gallery platform focused on flexibility and performance for large photo collections. It is extensible through themes and plugins and provides developer APIs for integrations and automation.

Silex is an open-source, visual website builder focused on creating fast static websites while still supporting dynamic data via APIs and CMS integrations. It can be used online or deployed on your own infrastructure, and also allows code-level control when needed.

Key Features

• Drag-and-drop visual editor for building static websites
• Built-in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript editors for advanced customization
• Plugin architecture for extending the editor and adding integrations
• Works well in composable/headless workflows (static front-end with external CMS/API)
• SEO-oriented static output and support for publishing/hosting workflows

Use Cases

• Building marketing sites and landing pages without writing code
• Creating static front-ends backed by a headless CMS or custom APIs
• Web studios producing client sites with a visual workflow and optional code control

Silex is a flexible option for teams and individuals who want a Webflow-like visual experience while keeping output based on web standards and portable static files. Its extensibility and headless-friendly approach make it suitable for modern JAMstack-style deployments.

ChronoFrame is a self-hosted personal photo gallery for uploading, organizing, and viewing photos in a modern, responsive web interface. It focuses on smooth browsing (including large images) and metadata-aware organization with map-based exploration.

Key Features

• Web-based photo upload and management with albums and a dashboard
• EXIF parsing to extract capture time, GPS coordinates, and camera details
• Reverse geocoding to identify shooting locations and map-based exploration view
• Live Photo and Motion Photo support (pairing image and MOV video components)
• Multiple storage backends, including local filesystem and S3-compatible storage
• SQLite-based setup option for low-maintenance deployments

Use Cases

• Personal or family photo library with location-aware browsing
• Lightweight self-hosted alternative for showcasing a frequently updated gallery
• Curating trips or events with albums and map exploration

ChronoFrame is a strong fit for users who want an easy-to-deploy, metadata-driven gallery with modern UI performance and support for dynamic photo formats. Its combination of map exploration, EXIF tooling, and flexible storage makes it practical for both private archiving and sharing curated collections.

Sigal is a simple static gallery generator written in Python. It processes image directories, creates resized images and thumbnails, and generates HTML pages using Jinja2 templates so galleries can be served as portable static sites.

Key Features

• Command-line interface with commands to initialize, build and serve galleries (init, build, serve).
• Generates HTML pages from Jinja2 templates with bundled themes and relative links for portable output.
• Image processing: resize, create thumbnails, preserve or extract EXIF metadata, and optional video handling.
• Multiple bundled themes (Colorbox / Galleria / PhotoSwipe-style frontends) and themeable templates.
• Parallel processing for faster builds, plus ZIP export and feed/plugin support in templates.
• Designed to work with common Python image libraries and toolchains; configurable JPEG options and thumbnail settings.

Use Cases

• Create static photo galleries for personal portfolios, events, or project showcases that can be deployed to static hosts.
• Generate optimized image sets (resized versions and thumbnails) for use in web projects or CDNs.
• Build reproducible demo galleries for testing frontend gallery libraries or theme development.

Limitations and Considerations

• Requires Python and a Python image library (Pillow); some image formats and full-featured EXIF handling depend on system image libraries being available. Autorotate and EXIF copy options have compatibility nuances because some image libraries cannot rewrite EXIF tags.
• Produces static output only (no built-in user authentication, dynamic backend, or hosted service features).
• Theme appearance and interactive features depend on included JavaScript libraries in the themes; advanced interactive features require those frontend libraries to be supported in the user's environment.

In summary, Sigal is a focused, CLI-driven tool for producing static image galleries from directories of media. It emphasizes configurable templates, image resizing/thumbnailing, and simple theme-based presentation for static deployments.

Zenphoto is a standalone, open-source CMS designed for media-focused websites — primarily photo galleries but also supporting video and audio. It provides a compact admin UI, theme-driven frontends and an integrated Zenpage plugin for blogging and custom pages. (zenphoto.org)

Key Features

• File-system based media management with multi-file upload and dynamic albums (saved searches). (zenphoto.org)
• Native support for images, video and audio formats; integrated Zenpage for news/blogs and custom pages. (zenphoto.org)
• Theme-driven frontend with many official and third-party themes; previewable via an official demo site. (demo.zenphoto.org)
• Search engine with boolean expressions, multimedia metadata handling and album/collection organization. (zenphoto.org)
• Active release cycle with maintenance releases (latest 1.6.x series and recent 1.6.8 release). (github.com)

Use Cases

• Photographers, illustrators and designers hosting portfolio galleries with integrated blog/news pages. (zenphoto.org)
• Small media sites (film makers, musicians) needing a lightweight CMS that handles mixed media formats. (zenphoto.org)
• Developers building custom gallery themes or plugins who want a file-system-first media CMS and extensible plugin hooks. (github.com)

Limitations and Considerations

• Official testing and recommendations are primarily for Apache/PHP environments; non-Apache servers may require extra configuration. Server PHP extensions (GD or Imagick, cURL, mbstring/iconv, etc.) are expected and some are required for full functionality. (zenphoto.org)
• The project maintains compatibility constraints across PHP/MySQL/MariaDB versions; review release notes and requirements before upgrading production installs. (zenphoto.org)

Zenphoto is a compact, purpose-built CMS for creators who need straightforward media gallery management with blogging and theming capabilities. It emphasizes simplicity, file-system media handling and extensibility via themes and plugins, with active community development and an official demo for previewing themes. (zenphoto.org)

GNU MediaGoblin is a free software media publishing platform you can run yourself to host and share user-uploaded media. It is designed as a decentralized, user-controlled alternative to centralized media sites, with an emphasis on extensibility and multiple media types.

Key Features

• Media publishing with user accounts and public-facing pages
• Support for multiple media types (including video)
• Extensible architecture for adding new media types and features
• API documentation included in the project (for integrations and clients)
• Deployment options via Docker and Docker Compose, with Nginx templates

Use Cases

• Personal or community-run photo and video sharing site
• Organization-hosted media gallery for publishing updates and assets
• Small-scale alternative media hosting for collectives or clubs

Limitations and Considerations

• Ecosystem and feature set may be less comprehensive than large commercial platforms
• Video and other rich media types can require significant storage and CPU for processing, depending on configuration

GNU MediaGoblin is a solid choice for people who want control over their media hosting while keeping a flexible foundation for future customization. It fits best when you value decentralization, extensibility, and freedom-focused software.