Immich works really well. Don’t fear the database. Docker makes it all super easy too.

Alternatively, Plex manages photos ok-ish.

I really don’t want another complex service i have to manage. ideally i want something that’s a simple python/perl/php script or something like that.

forgot to mention in OP but I run freebsd on my server and it’s possible to run docker(podman) with linux emulation if it’s very necessary, but i prefer not to use it

I hear you, I went through the same journey. After getting Immich set up, I haven’t had to do a single thing to it. There are scripts that can turn your folders into Immich albums, so I just set up the docker containers, ran the script, and watched as everything was created for me without more labor on my part.

I hope somebody else has the solution you’re looking for, but if you don’t find it, I really think you should give it a whirl because it turned out to be way easier than I expected it to be.

It does nothing but serve photo. Background tasks are minimal and many of them only run once on new photos.

@non_burglar @hexagonwin @WeirdGoesPro

I prefer #copyparty as an allrounder for serving static files (images and videos from my smartphone) - https://github.com/9001/copyparty
Uploading from my smartphone via #nextcloud on iOS into a shared folder for NC and CP 🤓

OK? By all means, use what works for you.

I personally wouldn’t go around using copy party’s initials liberally like that.

yeah, it’s only job is to serve photos yet it needs a whole linux container to run… i get why some people like it but i said it’s not what i want.

I mean, you say contradictory things in your post: you don’t want to manage a db, but you want to assign tags and categorize the photos, which would need a db of some kind.

If you really, really don’t want a db but you want web access to your pics, just rename them so they sort alphabetically the way you want and drop them in the doc root of a www server, apache or nginx would work. Do note that you will have no sorting or tagging options, but it will be dead simple. This is what the copyparty option would give you.

Not sure what you mean about “a whole Linux container”, the majority of my alpine images run in under 100MB memory and use less than 0.1% CPU, so it’s not clear to me what your objection is.

You’re likely not going to find something so simple and lightweight. Immich has some setup, but if you want a good gallery that’s the way to go. Don’t be afraid of the learning.

Immich isn’t complex, and I don’t think it requires a separate database.

Edit: just checked and technically it does, but if you use the docker compose then it deploys it automatically and you don’t have to think about it at all.

Edit2: if you really want something dead simple, yeah you could trivially write a tiny script to list and thumbnail images. I’m sure there are apache plugins for exactly this.

it’s not that the deployment process looks hard. it’s an extremely complex piece of software, something that only provides “container” (read: full linux image) method for deployment because it’s too complex to install manually. if something ever goes wrong inside that container, i won’t be able to fix it.

I feel like this is a case of not wanting to do the “difficult” thing because it sounds difficult when really avoiding the “difficult” thing is more difficult than just doing the “difficult” thing.

I was replacing the power steering rack on my P2 Volvo XC70 recently. I really didn’t want to drop the subframe because that sounded like a lot of work. Eventually I realized dropping the subframe was the easier way to get the power steering rack out and, in the end, it was way easier to just drop the subframe. It was like 10 more bolts and wasn’t that hard to put back. In this analogy, Immich is dropping the subframe, just do it.

no, it’s more about that i don’t want a separate linux installation on my freebsd server, all with it’s useless attack surfaces and such. i want something lightweight, and i specifically mentioned immich isn’t what i want in the OP. yet you folks are all downvoting and trying to persuade me to try that. no, i’m not using that.

after hearing it a few times i’ve tried it before and it’s not what i want. even ignoring the server part i hate that clunky google photos ripoff web interface.

You want a timeline feed viewable via web and an app. Immich does that. I don’t get it.

@WeirdGoesPro @hexagonwin Is there a FOSS alternative to Immich?

I’m pretty sure Immich is FOSS, at least according to the quick DDG search I just did.

It’s AGPL. You can’t get any more FOSS than that.

I don’t understand why the OS and file system don’t constitute, themselves, a database. Over the years I have spent a lot of time organizing my photo names, folders, and labels. I want a display service that will take advantage of that, not change it, and update immediately to any changes I make to it.

They do; just not optimized for that task

I have no experience with it, but my questions along a similar vein point to DigiKam.

i have used DigiKam in the past, it’s more of an alternative to XnView not a selfhosted gallery… it doesn’t even support mobile phones or web

It looks like every reply in this is a near miss so I’ll add another one to the pile: I’ve been working on a hosted immich platform for people who want privacy from big tech and don’t want to / can’t self host it at https://photos.minpin.me

TinyWebGallery?

www.tinywebgallery.com/en/demo2.php

this might actually work. thanks!

I’ve been using PiGallery2 for this github.com/bpatrik/pigallery2

But I do deploy via docker.

Here to suggest piwigo. Use it with docker, zero hassle but I think it does depend on a database, so it might be too heavy for your use case. Supports tags & galleries.

I have a use case where I use Next Explorer to share some directories with photos in them for others to see online. Clean, simple UI and no database, it just indexes your directories. PWA works well on phones.

It does run on docker though (like many, many foss apps). 🤷

I’ve been using Immich for a couple of years now, and I really like. Nextcloud is good, too.

PiGallery is what you’re asking for, but you should consider Immich, it’s very simple to setup and you’ll get tons of features more that are extremely useful. I get you want something simple, but I don’t feel Immich is hard to setup or maintain, and it’s the difference between a simple photo gallery and google photos.

Photoprism

github.com/photoprism/photoprism

Another vote for Immich. Running it with docker compose is trivial. Been using it for 2 years now and it’s been glorious. Running it without docker would take more setup, not sure how complex.

I refuse to use Docker to install applications, so Immich was also a no-go for me. I settled on using Photofield, it’s been pretty great: github.com/SmilyOrg/photofield

If you’re using Arch, Immich is in the AUR, that’s how I’m running it bare metal.

I run Debian on my VPSes. But, also, I’ve been through the path of doing what the PKGBUILD does, which is read the Dockerfike and manually execute the steps: I think it’s pretty problematic to have to do that every update cycle. Got Immich set up, looked at what I’d have to do every time I want to run an update, and "nope"d out.

With server side software like this, which will usually be running behind a reverse proxy and will connect to a postgres dB (or other services like Redis), I kind of don’t want to fight the software/make guesses to create these connections. I also take umbrage with the nginx proxying “example” configurations - just tell me what needs to be proxied to where and let me handle the rest; it’s a server, you don’t know my setup. Case in point, I don’t use nginx.

I like photofield because it’s a single binary (thanks, Go) listening on a port. I proxy what I need to it, and let it run.

Final note: I’m not knocking Immich, or the people who run it. I just think it’s lazy to distribute software with Docker because it encourages devs to write what I consider to be poorly designed software (E.g. Software with hard coded paths as strings, because everything is expected to be in the same place on every system - basically very rigid defaults). As a guy who knows his systems well, it annoys me I can’t manage them my way and need to run a nebulous docker container set up by some web developer. (some shade thrown there, my bad)

You don’t have to agree with me, I’m Don Quixote and this is one of my windmills.

Yeah, I get it. I do think containers encourage lazy integration - could be hard coded paths, or things like leaving apt in there, so no worries.

Immich and use Immichframe to cast it to a raspberry pi with a screen. That’s what I do and it’s awesome.

You can try Sigal or Piwigo.

I recommend Ente, they have a self-hosted option. ente.com

Any reason to pick this over Immich?

Looks like Ente supports end to end encryption and Immich doesn’t.

Does that matter if you’re self hosting and not exposing it to the internet?

That entirely depends on what your threat model is. You may not get any value out of that feature, but others may want it. One reason may be ease of storage drive disposal upon drive failure; i.e., if your drive is unencrypted and has your personal photos on it and it fails, the data is still recoverable with no easy way for you to destroy the data. If it was encrypted at rest, you wouldn’t have to worry about it because you would only have to rotate the encryption key.

If you’re using a raidz array (which you should) the data would be irrecoverable anyways when you dispose of a single drive, wouldn’t it? Also, why would you throw away a server drive that still works?

Why should I use a raidz array? I use other scalable storage solutions. Encryption at rest is a standard core tenant to cybersecurity. If one of the raidz drives is removed from the array, and you’re not encrypting your datasets, someone could recover data from the drive.

Well, if you’re storing data you care about on your server you kind of need to have redundancy. The best filesystem for that (imo) is ZFS so yes, you should use that (or something similar). Apparently you do use a “scalable storage solution” but you also seem fond of mystery.

If one of the raidz drives is removed from the array, and you’re not encrypting your datasets, someone could recover data from the drive.

The solution is in the question. Just encrypt the dataset.

I’ve never used Immich so I can’t speak for or against it. When I started down the selfhosting road, I found Ente first, that’s all.

That’s a bit odd considering how much more popular Immich is, but ok.

Deleted

Bumping this

I don’t want to run a separate database or anything complex, so things like Immich or Photoprism are not an option.

Why not just use podman and let it handle itself? Unless you’re planning on hosting like maybe several million photos, I doubt you would ever need to manually set up a DB.

Just download the compose file, add your photo directory paths to it, and let it start and never think about it again until you feel like updating for some new feature months later.

because i don’t want to use podman/docker? if you read the OP and the rest of the thread you wouldn’t have posted this comment…

I don’t think you are in the wrong here. You clearly stated your wants and so many replies here have simply ignored what you have said. The response to your post has been strange

i’m starting to think these people either don’t read the post body and only the title. or they’re bots? lol.

I read the OP which is why I asked the question, not the entire thread just to figure out that you don’t want to use containers.

immich has been super simple and easy for me, haven’t had to touch it since setting it up

You can’t use immich, but you’re thinking of rolling your own solution!?! What?

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

[Thread #110 for this comm, first seen 22nd Sep 2026, 20:50] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

I just use a SSHFS mount with Thunar.

you could create union mount with rclone to have one folder with all your pics, you can even filter them, e.g. folder with files not older than 1 year

thanks! will look into it