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Zenphoto

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Open-source, gallery-focused PHP CMS for media websites

318 stars 129 forks last commit first released

Actively maintained

Last commit 26 Jul 2026.

Zenphoto screenshot

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.

Key Features

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

Use Cases

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

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.
  • The project maintains compatibility constraints across PHP/MySQL/MariaDB versions; review release notes and requirements before upgrading production installs.

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.

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